State of Confusion
Last week, I did a post about the designer who claimed to have been ripped off by Urban Outfitters.
Some of you liked what I wrote. Some of you were very frustrated by my observations, and have taken to the internet to vent your butthurt.
It doesn’t surprise me. There’s nothing worse than a cock-block on your rage boner.
What I wasn’t expecting was for Urban Outfitters to cite me in their official response to the allegations. That’s put me in an interesting position, and it’s made me want to put a finer point on my opinion.
So let me start by saying that I didn’t write the post because I like Urban Outfitters. I don’t like them very much at all, to be honest with you. And there may very well be good reason to call for a boycott, but this particular reason isn’t it.
A boycott is a very serious thing, and if you’re going to start a social media shitstorm, you better have the facts on your side. You may think it’s exciting to be one of the Twitter mob, but with power comes responsibility. I think there’s room for critical thinking in 140 characters.
With that said, here is my effort to be absolutely clear:
• I do not think Truche stole the idea from anyone else.
I think she believed this was her creation. She was wrong.
Now that she knows she was wrong, I think it’s unethical to continue to accept orders. I’m also frustrated with people urging you to buy these pieces to “support” her. She is profiting from an idea that isn’t hers. Isn’t that what everyone is angry about? Or is it okay if you have an Etsy store?
She’s not a hero. She’s not a victim. There are real victims out there who are barely keeping a roof over their heads. A woman who made over 1000 sales based on a false claim does not need a T-shirt.
I also hear people saying that Urban Outfitters “stole” Truche’s copy, and I’m not buying that either. If you think Truche was actually the first person to say “I Heart” anything – much less “I Heart New York” you are drinking the hand crafted Kool-Aid from recycled cups.
But let’s just play Devil’s Advocate for a moment and say yes, Urban Outfitters did see this design in Truche’s store and decided to make their own version.
It isn’t hers.
Would that make Urban Outfitters’ thievery okay? No. But buying from Truche doesn’t make anything right. Whoever created the design first owns the copyright, and that’s the only person who has been harmed.
And not just by Urban Outfitters, but by Truche and all the other Etsy artists who make this same design without permission.
• Collective consciousness means the collective consciousness of all people, not just Etsy artists.
No matter where you stand on the issue, we all seem to agree that it’s possible for artists to independently think up similar ideas without knowledge of another’s work.
So why are we unwilling to consider that a corporation could do the same? After all, it’s not a corporation that comes up with an idea, it’s a human being who works there. People are fallible, whether they work for themselves or for a company you hate.
But we don’t really care about those people, because, well, fuck them. All corporations are evil. Every corporation is Halliburton. Big Pharma, Big Corn, Big Formula, Big Tobacco and finally, Big Necklace.
No one really wants to give the benefit of the doubt to Urban Outfitters, because they aren’t a likable company. I mean think about it; in one corner, you have a company that has stolen designs in the past, helmed by a man whose politics are extremely distasteful. And in the other corner, you have a cute blonde crafter, crying big owl tears over being oppressed by the Man. WHO YOU GOT?
Look, it’s easy to be fair when you like someone. But sometimes fair is not about what’s easy.
If you want to punish Urban Outfitters, punish them for actual crimes. There are plenty to choose from.
• Just as there are some ethical companies, some artists are real douchebags.
I’m not going to go so far as to call Urban Outfitters “ethical”, though they do sometimes do good things. They really do work with independent artists, and have given many an Etsy seller their big break.
But artists are not exempt from the asshole gene. You don’t have to go to an office every day to be a ruthless jerk. Artists undercut each other, steal customers, engage in all kinds of shilling, bad mouthing and politics.
It happens every day. As soon as an idea becomes popular or a design starts to trend, everyone starts making it. Just surf through the closed Etsy threads, and you’ll see hundreds of artists complaining about being ripped off, right down to their photos.
Being progressive is not about reflexively coming down on the side of the artist. It’s about coming down on the side of who is right.
• Rushing to stick it to the Man sometimes results in creating a new Man.
Because of your misplaced outrage, Truche is now looking at over $50,000 in orders she can’t possibly fill by herself in the promised 3 to 4 week delivery time. And the orders keep rolling in.
What do you think that means?
It means she’s going to have to start hiring people to help her. And with all this media attention, she can’t risk doing it under the table. She’ll have to give out W2s and keep pretty tight books, and with so much untaxed income, she’d better think about filing with the state so she doesn’t get hammered at tax time.
Which means that she’ll be a corporation.
A corporation turning out copies of someone else’s idea.
But that’s okay, because the tide will turn soon enough. If there’s one thing people hate more than an Etsy seller being ripped off, it’s an Etsy seller getting rich.
TO THE TWITTER MOBILE!
May 31, 2011 at 2:01 pm
“There’s nothing worse than a cock-block on your rage boner.”
BEST LINE EVER.
May 31, 2011 at 2:15 pm
I dunno, “crying big owl tears” is pretty good too.
May 31, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Agreed. I wasn’t even drinking anything when I read this, and I laughed so hard I still spit all over my monitor.
May 31, 2011 at 8:25 pm
I’ve been quietly lurking (read: laughing so hard and loud I can’t breathe or type) Regretsy+comments for a while, and truth be told, I can’t quit you. Apparently, I’m not alone, because so many readers end up spitting on monitors left and right.
Now, I break my lurky silence.
I’m thinking there should be a Regretsy Monitor Protector, designed to deflect the spits and spews coaxed out by the hilarity contained herein. Srsly, not only could it be the most practically fabulous site swag ever, it could bring in All Teh Moneyz (perhaps for April’s Army?).
Do us a solid, Regretsy. It would be awesome.
May 31, 2011 at 9:05 pm
I personally have to keep a bottle of window cleaner near my computer for just such an occasion.
May 31, 2011 at 10:40 pm
But for God’s sake, HOW DO WE SAVE THE KEYBOARDS?!
May 31, 2011 at 11:18 pm
Give them a copy of The Watchtower, maybe?
June 1, 2011 at 11:53 pm
I am officially claiming this idea as my own! I am first, even if I am not first! This idea is mine, mine, MINE! It involves colored plastic wrap and glitter. May also include clear plastic wrap and markers. Some rubber bands or colored scrunchies even…. Maybe even plastic Walmart bags (cause I have a shit load of them in my pantry). Anyway, this idea is officially MINE!
June 2, 2011 at 11:21 am
Well, I think a practical idea would be a simple surgical mask. But with a glittery, hand-felted vagina embellishment. Of course, with the addition of the highly innovative felted piss-flaps, it would need to be sold for like, what? Six hundred and eighty quid? Bargain!
May 31, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Totally love Big Necklace.
May 31, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Me too…there were a lot of good points and hot lines in that post, but Big Necklace really was the candle on the icing on the cake…erm…cupcake.
May 31, 2011 at 7:12 pm
That was about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen too! I want to be a big necklace lobbiest in congress.
June 1, 2011 at 5:01 am
Is Big Necklace run by a cabal of rappers…?
June 1, 2011 at 5:46 am
Whatever happened to Big Pussy?
June 1, 2011 at 1:31 pm
I was laughing at Big Formula too.
May 31, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Agreed. Love. it. April, marry me?
May 31, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Yes, marry woweewow. Then be a dear and give Bronc my number,
May 31, 2011 at 2:43 pm
I’m emotional today. and drunk. let’s all get married! yippeee
May 31, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Communal internet wedding!
May 31, 2011 at 3:28 pm
I hope this internet wedding has internet open bar. If I have to pay for my internet booze, I’m not bringing an internet gift.
May 31, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Internet husbands and wives, I want to go on an Etsy Cruise for our honeymoon. Let’s spend all our booze cash on Truche island and be incensed with rage as we ride around town on our Twitter mobiles.
Or not.
Alaskan cruise, por favour.
May 31, 2011 at 4:50 pm
I’m an internet minister, let’s do this thing!
May 31, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Would you say that you heart it? Wanna buy a necklace?
May 31, 2011 at 3:51 pm
This post has so many [i]best lines ever[/i], I can’t even stand it. TO THE TWITTER MOBILE!
May 31, 2011 at 3:51 pm
ow, my itals didn’t ital.
May 31, 2011 at 3:56 pm
You used brackets [ ] instead of carets:
May 31, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Damn it, the carets disappeared on me. They’re the lesser-than and greater-than thingies.
May 31, 2011 at 3:58 pm
You need to use real html tags here, not the pseudotags used by other comment software.
May 31, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Definite sampler material.
June 1, 2011 at 12:47 am
Here you go:
June 1, 2011 at 5:25 am
Lovely work – Etsy style water color, right?
May 31, 2011 at 5:03 pm
really april, dont copyright it, because im stealing it!
May 31, 2011 at 8:43 pm
And putting it on a necklace, right?
May 31, 2011 at 5:57 pm
This is starting to piss me off. Everytime I get a huge boner over some twitrage, someone comes along later with “facts” that just leave me with rage blueballs.
May 31, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Fucking factsters…
May 31, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Now I am just going to have to sit here and cry into my “successful small company makes good” Starbuck’s grande latte.
May 31, 2011 at 2:05 pm
But it’s so EASY to side with the little guy! People love to root for the underdog, whether they suck or not.
May 31, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Then, once the little guy has become “the man”, they start boycotting the new “man” & start supporting the new little guy being oppressed by the new “man”. {Elton John}It’s the ciiircle of liiiiife.{/Elton John}
May 31, 2011 at 5:14 pm
I suddenly feel the need to lift an animal into the air.
May 31, 2011 at 6:12 pm
I have a cat you can borrow – shes used to it.
June 1, 2011 at 6:37 am
I still like Green Mountain Coffee, even though they own Keurig and they’re a monolithic coffee behemoth.
Isn’t liking something until it becomes hugely successful a sign of hipsterism?
June 1, 2011 at 8:29 am
At least their coffee is still good, though.
don’t fool yourself – all these little “mom and pop” or “grassroots” companies want the same thing – to become popular enough to make lots of money…
June 1, 2011 at 2:29 pm
I like things that suck!!!
Do you realize how dirty our carpet would be if it didn’t suck.
May 31, 2011 at 2:06 pm
You know what else is pretty “far from original?”
The papyrus font.
Oops, sorry whimsytrove!
May 31, 2011 at 3:39 pm
I read that as whimsytroll.
May 31, 2011 at 7:34 pm
I’m totallythinking of changing my name to “whimsy troll” now!
May 31, 2011 at 5:02 pm
“Being slammed” by anything or anyone called “whimsytrove” should be worn as a badge of honor.
Bring it on Bombadil!
May 31, 2011 at 8:49 pm
But it makes them seem so whimsicle and exotic.
May 31, 2011 at 2:06 pm
I’ve been on team collective consciousness since I first saw the pendant.
That’s not true. When I first saw the pendant, I thought it was a pornographic pendant of two people screwing. That’s original and ballsy for Urban Outfitters to carry. Then when I realized it was actually a state with a heart in it, I decided that Urban Outfitters fell into the same old tired design and probably didn’t steal anything here.
May 31, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Someone in the Consumerist comments said they liked how you can punch a heart in a square and sell it as Colorado and Wyoming.
May 31, 2011 at 2:22 pm
HELEN KILLER READS CONSUMERIST
*swoon*
May 31, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Why does the name Jeff Koons keep floating through my ether?
May 31, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Use a rectangle with a squiggly right side and you could probably pass it off as SD, ND or KS.
May 31, 2011 at 6:00 pm
I actually eyed a Kansas one (as that’s my home state) and thought how it looked strangely like wearing a razor blade around your neck. Midwest Hardcore or a statement on living in the midwest :/
May 31, 2011 at 10:44 pm
I have a Kansas charm with a heart. I’ve had it for 30 years and I no longer remember why, as a native Californian, I hearted Kansas so much. Hometown of Superman? Wizard of Oz? Needless to say, I’m on the side of collective consciousness.
May 31, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Same thing goes for Delaware and Rhode Island. She probably can’t even cut a full heart in those dinky states.
May 31, 2011 at 5:38 pm
And then there’s Saskatchewan!
May 31, 2011 at 4:30 pm
I dont think UO did anything wrong. If they did, then the whole freaking state of TX has to be sued into submission, bc there’s ten million different/same necklaces just like the Texas one shown. “____ in the heart of Texas” anyone? “Someone in Texas loves you” etc.
May 31, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Okay, now I’m confused: before I worshipped April Winchell because of her sharp wit and acute observational skills; now I think I’m in love with her because of her precise, well-thought-out, and perfectly executed argument. Which April Winchell am I more impressed by? I just can’t decide! No really, it’s so RARE to read ANYTHING like this online, and I’m sure most people would agree: most online ANTHING turns into, ‘oh yeah, well you’re dumb’, or, ‘I bet you’re a loser’. Concise, precise, intelligent and carefully chosen words just don’t happen anymore. Thank you, April. You rock.
May 31, 2011 at 4:42 pm
She was logical, intelligent, and rational. No wonder the cupcakes hate it. Facts and logic rather than praise & fairy farts; the nerve of her!
On the plus side, I was starting to go into butt hurt/flounce withdrawal but now I’m feeling reinvigorated! Thanks April.
May 31, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Sweet Jesus, I spend too much time on this site. At first glance I thought ArtfulKnitter ended her post with “Thank you April. You cock.”
I half expected to scroll down and see a response from HK along the lines of “You’re welcome, dickweed.” Now I’m kind of disappointed…
May 31, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Me thinks you need to get laid
I know *I* do LOL
May 31, 2011 at 9:18 pm
You don’t have to choose that’s the beauty of it!!!
May 31, 2011 at 9:25 pm
This is exactly what I thought when I read todays’s post. April is my new internet hero. Because she doesn’t stop being a rational human being while on the internet.
Even while loaded up on Vicodin. That is impressive, let me tell you. I’m lucky if I can find my keys while on that stuff.
June 1, 2011 at 6:08 am
Ditto. I sort of rolled on the floor–of my office, no less–in a good kind of agony when I pulled up Regretsy and was buried by a dump-truck load of logic and coherent writing. I see so little of that these days. Thank you, April!
June 1, 2011 at 8:23 am
Plus there were effing BULLET POINTS! She would have gotten an A from my “Persuasive Writing” Prof.
May 31, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Look, I just want to be righteously upset about something. Can’t you tell me what, so I can flail and move on? Make it easy on me for once, Regretsy. What do I pay you for?
May 31, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Wait…you’re paying for this??
HK is ripping you off, brah!
May 31, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Shhhh!
May 31, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Say what! Duped again.
Now, less political debatin’, more jealous hatin’!
May 31, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Sis.
(“Primate Dunce” fan here)
May 31, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Sweet!
May 31, 2011 at 5:29 pm
And this was only the first time today anyone thought I was a dude on the internet! Usually happens a few times by now.
June 1, 2011 at 7:25 am
btw, I didn’t actually assume you were a dude. I was just in my ‘Dude, the corporations, Brah’ mode due to all of this stuff about the Man.
May 31, 2011 at 3:29 pm
This is the key right here. “I’m bored! I need to displace my self-butthurt on a Big Cause! Otherwise I’ll have to put energy toward actually creating something new or improving the world around me in a tangible way instead of recycling the same old shit, and damn, that’s exhausting!”
I get peevish with people who make a habit of externalizing the locus of control. So there.
May 31, 2011 at 6:27 pm
It’s a bit like those “93% of my friends wont repost this in their status for an hour” FB slacktivism updates. What the fuck does that crap achieve?
What was that awesome quote from HK? It’s better to talk shit and do good, than talk good and do shit.
May 31, 2011 at 8:10 pm
I hate those. Breast Cancer has such fantastic PR, but terrible R&D*. At least those ribbons, etc. involved giving money to some kind of foundation that funds research…
June 1, 2011 at 8:06 am
I need that quote on a sampler.
May 31, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Those people need a job..
May 31, 2011 at 2:08 pm
wheee!
http://consumerist.com/2011/05/jewelry-design-urban-outfitters-allegedly-stole-not-all-that-original-actually.html
May 31, 2011 at 2:16 pm
It’s a little sad when investigative reporting is left up to humor sites
Not sad at all! April IS after all, a HuffPo writer!
May 31, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Worse still when investigative reporting is left up to unpaid Huffington Post bloggers.
June 1, 2011 at 5:48 am
One millions yesses to that!
May 31, 2011 at 2:19 pm
“Investigative reporting”? Consumerist? Cited by UO themselves?!?
April, you better start posting more goatse and fingerpainters, you are in very real danger of getting this site taken seriously.
May 31, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Dear God, it’s the Daily Show all over again… We’ve gone from fake news to non-news.
May 31, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Sometimes the satirists are the ONLY ones willing to tell the truth… everyone else is too busy pushing an agenda.
May 31, 2011 at 2:08 pm
I don’t use recycled cups for my hand crafted kool-aid. I use a mug with a mustache painted on it. It makes me more hipster.
May 31, 2011 at 2:13 pm
I drink mine out of a wine glass with vampire fangs etched into it.
May 31, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Well thank Heavens you don’t drink your kool aid with a hand painted “Memaw’s sippy cup” on it.
May 31, 2011 at 2:23 pm
I drink directly from a mustache. I started doing it before it was cool.
May 31, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Picturing you sucking kool-aid from a fake mustache. Ewww.
May 31, 2011 at 10:08 pm
You inspired me to check if I could buy an item on Etsy with a state shape and a mustache cutout. Sure enough:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/61284488/light-blue-and-white-texas-mustache?ref=sr_list_4&ga_search_submit=&ga_search_query=mustache+state&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade
May 31, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Funny, I drink mine from a Octopus mug that I glued a watch gear to so I could say I take my coffee steampunk.
May 31, 2011 at 3:59 pm
I just squirt octopus ink directly into my mouth, and anyone who points and laughs at me. Which is everyone, actually.
May 31, 2011 at 3:59 pm
(this is assuming that octopi produce ink, and it’s not just squids.)
May 31, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Octopi don’t produce squids. That takes a mummy squid and a daddy squid.
I have no idea what octopi produce, apart from baby octopi which then end up as a Mediterranean dish.
I wonder when my pills are going to kick in.
May 31, 2011 at 4:32 pm
And it feels so good!
May 31, 2011 at 8:15 pm
Is octopus ink similar to fountain pen ink?”
(The questions people ask – and answer – on the internet.)
June 1, 2011 at 4:11 am
I am a little ashamed to admit this but I have an octopus necklace. I made it a few years ago before the hipsters started to wear them. I added spike charms to the tentacles. Its a reference to order of the stick Evan’s spiked tentacles of forcible intrusion. I do sometimes change the spikes out with charms. I like to say that its because octopuses have charm. I never used watch parts though. I also never calmed that he was steam punk.
June 1, 2011 at 6:49 am
Sooooo… you basically wore an octopus necklace before octopus necklaces were cool? I see hipster people
June 1, 2011 at 9:38 am
Big love to the OOTS reference, tho I’m a larger fan of Bigsby’s Expressive Singluar Digit…
June 1, 2011 at 1:22 pm
After seeing the octopus post on Regretsy, I bought my own, cheaper, octopus necklace off ebay. I LOVE IT.
June 1, 2011 at 2:35 pm
You my friend are BIG NECKLACE!!!
May 31, 2011 at 3:42 pm
And my Kool-aid is made of powdered unicorn horns collected by children on the summer solstice.
May 31, 2011 at 4:24 pm
!!! Well I never.
May 31, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Maybe you should.
May 31, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Kool-aid – surely not. It should be either purified water from a galicer in a country of which you have never heard OR a blend of juices from organic lychees, passion fruits and guavas.
May 31, 2011 at 6:11 pm
Because my family’s health is very important to me! *sucks on Marlboro*
May 31, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Screw health, it is just more hip.
May 31, 2011 at 6:52 pm
It’s all fun and games until someone needs a new hip.
May 31, 2011 at 8:36 pm
If it is really new and no one has ever heard of it than it will be a hip hip.
May 31, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Your hip?
May 31, 2011 at 2:09 pm
after finishing reading i say “HERE HERE”. you are brilliant with words. i really almost cried, but that might be the PMS.
May 31, 2011 at 2:26 pm
I’ve always wondered, is it “here here” or “hear, hear?”
Meh, I took out a copywrite on both, just in case. You owe me a buck.May 31, 2011 at 3:54 pm
It’s the second. As in “listen to this, dudes!”
(That’s why it’s shouted at speeches, traditionally.)
May 31, 2011 at 7:35 pm
That is correct. Also, it’s copyright, not copywrite.
June 1, 2011 at 1:44 am
On barely related news, I was surprised to discover that in parliament here in the UK it is customary to shout “Hear, hear” or “Shame, shame”, depending on whether or not you agree with what’s being said. I honestly thought the tradition was to bleat like a disaffected sheep – that’s what it sounds like.
May 31, 2011 at 10:09 pm
I believe it’s “hear, here” as in directing the listener where and when to hear.
May 31, 2011 at 2:09 pm
True words all.
May 31, 2011 at 2:10 pm
You are amazing.
May 31, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Yay for voice of reason.
Regretsy may be unoriginal (like… yeah
), but it has good head on its shoulders.
May 31, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Regretsy may not have a pretty face, but it’s willing to work harder to keep our relationship fresh.
May 31, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Reminds me of a quote I like- “You are forcing me to be the voice of reason, and that is not a good look for me.”
May 31, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Oh my god. I’m only this far into the comments and there’s SO MANY samplers waiting to be stitched, I’m afraid the sampler lady may have to become a corporation to get them all produced.
May 31, 2011 at 5:03 pm
ITA! I went through a stitchery phase in the early-mid ’90s. I was still reading voraciously, and my eyesight began to fail! Guess which one lost? I am almost regretting that now.
May 31, 2011 at 5:07 pm
ITA on the samplers, not the corporation, mind. Though I’d join up, if I still had skills. Or eyes. Wait, nvm. *Queues up some Thievery Corporation
May 31, 2011 at 9:56 pm
http://www.internetslang.com/ITA.asp
May 31, 2011 at 5:19 pm
To give good head you have to have a head on your shoulders.
May 31, 2011 at 2:13 pm
From her chrysalis, she shall burst forth as A Corporation, the newest pawn in Big Necklace!
May 31, 2011 at 3:31 pm
BIG NECKLACE: cross-stitch, anyone?
May 31, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Is that the sequel to the Yes album “Big Generator”?
May 31, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Somehow, I don’t think the Etsy seller is going to have any trouble punching those states/countrys out of tin (ooops…”pure” silver)to fulfill her orders without bringing in hired help. In the end, any publicity is good publicity. I forget who said that~
May 31, 2011 at 2:13 pm
It is dawning on me that because I am a reasonable person who doesn’t whine and stamp my feet and throw a tantrum online or off, that I will probably die poor and in obscurity.
I have no idea how to do this “look, I’m being oppressed – pity me!” thing. Really. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.
Can you (the global “all of the internet” you, not “Helen/Bronc specific” you) help?
May 31, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Yes. Have some gin. You’ll forget all about this in no time. Worksh for me! (hic)
May 31, 2011 at 2:20 pm
And here is a lime to squeeze into your gin!
Who says we don’t take care of each other?
May 31, 2011 at 2:23 pm
This is just like a family. Without all the unpleasant “obligation” and “fistfighting”, etc.
May 31, 2011 at 2:40 pm
As long as I never have to see any of you during the holidays, there is nothing but love.
May 31, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Family: the people you’re stuck with.
May 31, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Your loss RosieB, I have a wild celebration for the Vernal Equinox.
May 31, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Rev, I could easily see fistfighting on here…
May 31, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Thumbs UP for gin (and the limes).
May 31, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Damn, I love me a good Vernal Equinox shindig…
May 31, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Hey, you opted out of the holidays. If you choose to reconsider and bring some good gin the door’s open and the limes are sliced.
May 31, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Nope. I suck at tooting the pity horn too.
…okay. That didn’t come out quite like it sounded in my head.
May 31, 2011 at 2:51 pm
LOL! All I could think of when I read this was “pooting the t*tty horn”; that’s exactly how I would accidentally say it if I tried to say your sentence.
May 31, 2011 at 2:40 pm
this feels like a good time for a Monty Python quote
“help help im being repressed!!”
May 31, 2011 at 7:38 pm
My love, it knows no bounds for a good Python quote… especially when used in context! ^_^
June 1, 2011 at 1:49 am
With all this talk of corporation greed and handmade,OOAK crafting, the most important thing to realise is that, at the end of the day, we are all individuals.
May 31, 2011 at 2:42 pm
“Come see the violence inherent in the system!”
May 31, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Bloody peasant.
May 31, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
May 31, 2011 at 6:48 pm
You can’t claim supreme executive authority, just because some watery tart lobbed a sword at you!
June 1, 2011 at 10:02 am
I mean, if I went around saying I was king, just because some moistened bitch threw a scimitar at me, they’d put me away!
May 31, 2011 at 3:30 pm
I suggest a mint chocolate chip Klondike bar. That shit is tasty and always makes me not care that I suck at trying to look oppressed.
May 31, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Or gin. Gin works.
May 31, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Do you know a lot of cupcakes? Or at least a lot of silly, easily led people who are willing to take up your cause the minute you say you were wronged? They’re definitely going to be necessary.
May 31, 2011 at 5:50 pm
No but I’ve consumed a lot of cupcakes. That’s how I got to be fat (the lazy, jealous loser part was there already)
May 31, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Wow, April, that was an incredibly well thought-out and concisely-stated argument. Fuckery and hilarity (which I love, by the way) aside, you really prove yourself to be insightful as well as inciteful. High fives!
May 31, 2011 at 2:15 pm
I love you.
If everyone boycotted big corporations every time one of their CEO’s was an asshole or the company did something shitty we’d all be wearing hemp and eating kale.
May 31, 2011 at 4:03 pm
couldn’t we just smoke hemp wrapped in kale?
May 31, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Just say “no” to kale.
May 31, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Rail against kale!
May 31, 2011 at 5:20 pm
May 31, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Haha I love that!
June 1, 2011 at 1:51 am
I thought when I first read that post that there’s something puzzling about her legs.
June 1, 2011 at 10:27 am
You’ve heard of “meth mouth?” This is “kale legs.”
May 31, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I have a hard time railing against folks who were initially outraged at the idea of Urban Outfitters stealing from a wee little designer, because history shows they’ve done it in the past. Seems natural to assume they have done it again.
Once the facts are presented, though, dig your head out of your arse.
May 31, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Or do a search for facts before getting outraged rather than be outraged while waiting for someone else to present the facts.
May 31, 2011 at 5:34 pm
But intellectual laziness is so much easier since you can hide behind anonymity when you have to eat crow!
June 1, 2011 at 12:13 am
Eating crow is a tough assignment for vegan hipsters.
May 31, 2011 at 2:17 pm
“If there’s one thing people hate more than an Etsy seller being ripped off, it’s an Etsy seller getting rich.”
Ain’t that the fuckin truth. God forbid anyone actually become successful.
May 31, 2011 at 2:37 pm
But isn’t the goal to “Quit Your Day Job”?
(Which makes me wonder what happens when your Etsy work becomes your day job. Etsy paradox!)
May 31, 2011 at 2:48 pm
I would go insane if all I did was hang out on Etsy all day.
May 31, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Quit, yes. Make a decent living off of? No. I think there’s supposed to be some sort of integrity in wearing clothes fund in dumpsters and eating only one’s own soy-based pastries, neither of which seem to go hand-in-hand with actual wealth.
May 31, 2011 at 4:04 pm
We’ve seen what happens. Earl Gray, mustaches on sticks, and silencing posters in fora.
May 31, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Oh, and writing workshops.
May 31, 2011 at 4:13 pm
As I click through the website where I made all my cash
I take a look at my life and realize I’m pretty brash.
Made all my money off of glue and gems,
no need to worry about ragged hems.
Used to have a job and drink boxed wine,
but now I’m rich and and the gin is fine. Fool.
I’ve been through all the writing courses on-line
I really like coleslaw and my copy is fine.
I got twenty-two hearts and I’m on the front page
All you hipster twits gonna get upstaged.
Call me out in a forum, they will shut you down.
I’m a glitter unicorn, you’re nothing but a clown.
…..
Eating cupcakes, wearing mustache socks,
living in my Etsy paradox.
Resold junk to make up cost
living in my Etsy paradox.
I don’t know what steampunk does,
living in my Etsy paradox.
Bein’ on Regretsy’s such a shock
living in my Etsy paradox.
May 31, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Weird Al is the greatest at knock-off songs! Perfect placement for this, Spy!
May 31, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Someone NEEDS to make a music video with this!
May 31, 2011 at 6:17 pm
May 31, 2011 at 9:29 pm
The universe collapses and we all die, thanks Etsy.
May 31, 2011 at 2:43 pm
When did crafting become the same as starting a band?
May 31, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Huge thumbs up, and another cross-stitch beauty.
Um, I’d better stop making suggestions for cross-stitch when I don’t even do it myself. Talk about externalizing…oops.
May 31, 2011 at 5:06 pm
“And you can tell Rolling Stone magazine that my last words were… I’m on drugs!”
May 31, 2011 at 5:57 pm
I AM A GOLDEN CUPCAKE GOD!
June 1, 2011 at 12:35 am
God, I love y’all. Y’know why? You’re real.
I grew up with that ironic space-age lampshade! I love this kitchen, with its concrete countertops and lovingly restored ’30s gas stove that could blow us up at any moment but is all vintage and shit.
Do I want to watch you feed a red velvet cupcake to your bandana-festooned golden retriever? Yes!
Because this is real.
May 31, 2011 at 3:09 pm
I think its more like don’t sell your fucking soul. This seller sold her soul. For all we know she’s gonna wholesale these things from somewhere… which leads me to wonder if she even made the things in the first place. THATS ALOT OF MATERIAL and ALOT of WORK for one person for 2 months let alone 3-4 weeks. I woulda had to close my shop down.
And the sad thing is… while yes she just made beaucoup de dollars… she kinda liquidated her buying pool in one foul swoop. There are only so many state heart necklaces one needs. And now when someone googles heart necklace state what do you think is going to come up?
May 31, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Exactly. I wouldn’t be suspicious if she only listed as many as one person could make in a month, but she had no problem posting over a thousand listings. As a seller myself, when my month’s getting full, I suspend listings or edit the delivery timeframe so I don’t end up with an unreasonable number of orders without having a plan in place. With her willingness to take over a thousand orders, I can’t help but wonder if she wasn’t already ordering them from somewhere else.
June 1, 2011 at 7:52 am
Yeah that is what I’ve been thinking too. wTF?! She is gonna have a fuckton of work. I feel bad if I don’t get my stuff shipped in 3 days. And everything I have listed, I have sitting there waiting to be bought.. So it is already made. There is just no way I could keep re-listing and still sleep @ night with sales like hers.
June 2, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Like China maybe? She’ll be running there now if she hasn’t already!
May 31, 2011 at 7:00 pm
“One foul swoop” hehehe; that’s good. The crack is working for you.
May 31, 2011 at 7:41 pm
I’m jealous when someone can leave their “day job” to do actual hand-crafts, but when selling out integrity to do it, I can’t get behind that. Truche sold out integrity.
June 1, 2011 at 12:48 am
Nah. None of us can know what she’s really thinking, other than, “Holy shit!” That’s just a given.
All Truche did was was yell real loud when she thought she’d been done wrong, and it turned into a prairie fire.
If her hat looks black now, it’s just from all the soot.
May 31, 2011 at 2:17 pm
amazing. so true and so eloquently put.
i mean, someone deserving should be making $50,000 off their original designs.
like ME! godamnit.
May 31, 2011 at 2:19 pm
It seems like this is how it often goes down with mega-douches: they behave poorly for a long time in many ways, but there isn’t a huge outrage over it until one particular event that just makes a shit-ton of folks go ballistic. Unfortunately, that event usually turns out to be something that is sort of grey, once all of the details are discovered. But that’s all the more reason to look at the OTHER events that have gone into creating a mega-douche like UA. Hey, there are PLENTY of other clearly valid reasons to take issue with them and boycott their business besides this, and you’ve pointed that out really well in these posts on the subject. I also must applaud the way you’ve pointed out how all of the purchases in the Etsy store have created a new problem, not a solution.
Well thought out and presented – but I’ve come to expect nothing less from you.
May 31, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Ethics are hard.
It’s much simpler when one side is a cute female etsy artist, and the other is a medium-sized corporation run by a “white guy with tie” with decidedly un-progressive politics.
Especially when the narrative fits the “david v. goliath” myth rather neatly, and is being promoted by blog-media instead of Rush Limbaugh.
“Finally,” you might say, “I have the same chance to get all worked up over something, just like my elderly parents do, watching Fox News.”
Then Helen comes along and makes it clear that it’s Not That Simple. What to do?
Allow me to offer a solution: Hipster post-ironic mild displeasure. “I’ve hated Urban Outfitters LONG before this… thing (rolls eyes, takes a swig of PBR). Only frat boy freshmen get their style from them, anyway.”
May 31, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Disliking Urban Outfitters is so last October.
May 31, 2011 at 4:07 pm
I think I shopped at the first Urban Outfitters in/near the Penn campus in Philly in 1875 or 76, BACK WHEN IT WAS COOL.
May 31, 2011 at 4:08 pm
jeebus what a place for a typo. 1976 NINETEEN. gah.
May 31, 2011 at 4:22 pm
WIN!
May 31, 2011 at 4:32 pm
1875 or 1876 DOES sound like when UO was last cool, however.
May 31, 2011 at 5:20 pm
I literally laughed out loud, and I don’t do that often. I’m still choking on my water.
May 31, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Darn, I was thinking that you would be a great source for vintage.
May 31, 2011 at 5:52 pm
I *am* a fabulous source for Vintage.
In fact, I AM vintage.
May 31, 2011 at 6:19 pm
1875 or 76 would make it Steampunk too, wouldn’t it?
May 31, 2011 at 8:43 pm
I respect you vintageness Princess BCGE. However, I doubt that I can wear you with my black trousers.
May 31, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Best. Typo. Ever. There was so much Regretsy fuel, I couldn’t breathe. Thank you!
May 31, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Your made-up statistics notwithstanding, I call bullshit. I’m incorporated. Lots of people with small businesses are incorporated. Not every corporation is a billion dollar entity existing for the purpose of taking advantage of people and dodging liability.
I see a need to be fair, period. Giving an artist the benefit of the doubt while shitting on companies without examining the facts is irresponsible. Real human beings work in companies, and shouldn’t be made to suffer because an internet mob didn’t do their homework
May 31, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Thank you for calling this out. It’s exhausting to see that folks are willing to give themselves a pass for harsh judgments based on weak justifications like, “but it’s a corporation, so they deserve it anyway.” Attitudes like that are simply excuses for intellectual laziness. We all have an obligation to do our research before passing judgment, preconceived notions or not.
Also, thank you for pointing out that being a corporation isn’t a BAD thing. Stealing is bad. Hurting others is bad. Exploiting your employees is bad. And yes, all of those things have become associated with corporations, but it’s not like there’s some handbook out there that says this is what one does when one incorporates. Like anything else, when used right, a corporation has the potential to be a very good thing.
May 31, 2011 at 5:07 pm
This reminds me of the Etsy seller who said it was ok to steal jewelry supplies from Spencer’s because they’re a big corporation and it wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Which makes it right.
May 31, 2011 at 6:21 pm
No calling out without dialing “9″. I’m gonna shut this down now, thanks! *heart* *smiley* *rainbow fart*
June 1, 2011 at 5:03 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 8:20 pm
Now, now Helen! No calling out. Don’t make me shut this bitch down!!!
Also, I’m a corporation. For real. I’m totally harmless. I sell plays about magical oranges.
June 1, 2011 at 2:02 am
Hear Hear Hear Hear Hear!
The number of people who use the word “corporation” when they don’t know what it means drives me crazy. I co-ran a small engineering consultancy for 6 years. It was a fully incorporated limited company. There were three of us. When someone failed to pay a bill, it came out of our wages. We were definitely not “the man”.
And much as it would be nice to divide the world along lines of black-and-white for the convenience of haters, there is no dividing line between that kind of company and “big corporations”. It’s just a question of size. And ownership – companies that are floated on the stock market and have a large number of anonymous shareholders tend to be much more badly-behaved than individually-owned companies of whatever size.
June 1, 2011 at 4:45 am
Yes, but if your corporation went bankrupt, and you had debts exceeding the corporation’s assets, you personally would not be liable for that. Tell me that was not a motivating feature for incorporation. It was for me.
This isn’t about creating a black and white morality play; I just don’t see any need to create a false equivalence between two entities, one real and the other fake.
Think of it this way: corporations make it possible – not inevitable, but possible – to persist and institutionalize the kind of asshole behavior you deplore in certain Etsy sellers.
June 1, 2011 at 4:39 am
My business is incorporated, too. I just don’t use it as an excuse to do things I wouldn’t myself do. Large corporations just don’t have consciences, because they are organizations with internal politics and special interests. So it’s not solely about corporations, but it is about the way these entities act in comparison to flesh-and-blood humans.
Nobody’s talking about making real human employees of corporations suffer. Where did that come from? Corporations in and of themselves, however, have no feelings. I don’t feel any duty to stick up for them or be fair to them, anymore than I’d stick up for a car or a toaster.
June 1, 2011 at 8:51 am
And so corporations in and of themselves, can not Be Evil. I don’t have any urge to decry them as evil any more then I decry my car as evil or my toaster. Or my shoes. It’s never a matter of sticking up for my shoes or not, no rational person can accuse my shoes of being evil (other then when I take them off and stink up the place… maybe)
If my shoes tread on a kitten and crush its tiny skull it is not the shoes that are evil but the human agent within them that has done something “Bad”. The human agent, me, uses them to perform specific external actions and fulfill an agenda. So neither are my shoes good if I choose to run a marathon for charity. They are the vehicle.
Decrying all stilettos as evil because someone makes kitty crush videos in a pair seems to be about as rational as decrying all corporations for being soulless evil machines.
June 1, 2011 at 8:57 am
I made the mistake of devoting nearly 100% of my time and energy into a corporation I worked for.
They become almost human sometimes in the love you can have for them, or the compassion the connection with them creates. Have you ever had brand loyalty? I’ve seen fanatics swooning over the brand I called family…
I had a woman from HR take me aside and warn me: “You can love a company, but be careful – it can’t love you back. You’re going to get hurt someday.” No truer words had ever been spoken to me – but I didn’t fully understand them until I was emotionlessly fired a year or so later.
I’m just throwing a story out there – it’s not an arguement for or against anything, just an example of a company becoming something more than it is at a certain point in one person’s life.
June 1, 2011 at 11:14 am
Right, infidelicity: with a single agent, the moral difference between a corporation / firm / company and a sole proprietor is minimal (or purely legal). The problem is large institutions like corporations are groups of people, and groups have no conscience in and of themselves, either. So when the agency for a particular action is obfuscated by a “legal fiction” standing in for the people who actually did the acts – and especially for those who benefit from the acts – you have a situation where poor behavior can be institutionalized and persisted without sane limits.
Corporations cannot “be evil”. All they can do is scale up human evil without scaling up the consequences. Both an independent (are we happy I typed that out?) Etsy seller and UO can do “bad” things, but nobody would doubt UO has more resources to apply to the matter; they act at a different *scale*.
I’m absolutely astounded that this issue of scale is so totally alien to people enthusiastic about handmade.
June 1, 2011 at 12:49 pm
“Nobody’s talking about making real human employees of corporations suffer.”
So who do you think gets hurt in a boycott? The building?
You harm a company’s reputation enough to keep them from doing business and selling merchandise, the employees will eventually pay the price.
May 31, 2011 at 4:15 pm
I’m an S-corp, myself. Tried being an LLC but it meant I had to pay way more taxes to The Man.
So am I the right kind of corporation now?
May 31, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Dear Jeremy6d:
I invented the number 9999. Pay up, suckah.
May 31, 2011 at 6:26 pm
If Regretsy has taught me anything, it’s that if you stick a TM on there, it’s automatically yours.
May 31, 2011 at 5:35 pm
Wow, “flesh & blood” people” want to protect themselves from liability in case some fucktard gets a case of butt hurt and decides to sue them for everything they own. Given all the special snowflake, cupcakes out there, you’d have to be incredibly naive or a moron not to incorporate or otherwise take advantage of legal protection.
June 1, 2011 at 4:54 am
I’d agree with your statement, but there are consequences to this reality we all deal with. It also means the board members of the corporation dumping toxic waste in your backyard gets the same protection.
I won’t lie: it’s a bit confounding to see people who have so much to gain from a more human scale economy defend our corporate overlords. Nobodies expecting you all to be revolutionaries, but come on – there is more to all this than cynical dismissals of twitter trends.
May 31, 2011 at 2:20 pm
I love you April. I want you to give my eulogy.
May 31, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Ok, but we have to kill you first. With mustached spoons.
May 31, 2011 at 6:46 pm
No, no the spoon has the muslin rag. Next year’s knife comes with the mustache.
May 31, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Most.Awesome.Post. EVER.
May 31, 2011 at 2:22 pm
And this is yet another reason I love you. Thanks for pointing out the the nuances of this whole thing. And for the fuckery in general.
May 31, 2011 at 2:24 pm
I have nothing witty or original to say. This was very well said, and I will be posting a link to this post on my facebook page (seeing as how I posted the one about Urban Outfitters stealing the design… sigh…)
May 31, 2011 at 3:08 pm
At least you’re willing to be persuaded by facts, unlike the people who’s outrage train only follows the rails one way, no brakes.
May 31, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“Outrage train.” That’s a thing of beauty.
Dang, you guys are ON today. It’s one brilliant phrase after another.
June 1, 2011 at 12:53 am
Don’t feel bad. It was easy to go there, seeing as how UO is run by douchebags.
May 31, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Also, Urban Outfitters is now selling a wide variety of mustache-themed products.
Talk about your ethical quandaries.
May 31, 2011 at 4:29 pm
I’m waiting to get mad for when they start selling more beard-themed items. Because they’re all MY idea. Even though I can’t grow a beard.
May 31, 2011 at 9:39 pm
I bet you didn’t even try, quitter.
May 31, 2011 at 10:08 pm
HA! That just made my night.
May 31, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Yeah, I posted the “Bikestache” link the other day. It wasn’t Whimsicle, it was pure Fuckery.
May 31, 2011 at 2:26 pm
You know, I don’t completely toss her under the bus. It really does suck when you are hand creating something, stamping, grinding, cutting, putting yourself into an object, and along comes a company who can pay a hundred thousand Chinese to do it at a mechanical press and totally undercut you and flood their much larger market reach with a design you work hard at.
However, that doesn’t automatically mean they stole from you.
May 31, 2011 at 2:29 pm
It does suck. And it happens a lot, so I understand the knee jerk reaction.
But when it’s pointed out to you that it was not your design, it’s your turn to be ethical. Stop taking orders and stop taking T-shirt money.
May 31, 2011 at 2:54 pm
It’s a shame people don’t just look around and choose based on what they like. When you made the original post, I remember thinking that Truche’s looked like better quality representations than the UO ones.
May 31, 2011 at 2:56 pm
I don’t think she needs to stop producing the item entirely. If the real copyright owner steps forward and demands it, sure. But it seems so generic and simple a design that the original artist may never be known. If she needs to pull the product, so should everyone else – Etsy and UO designers alike.
The tee shirt is pretty dumb though.
May 31, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Yeah, I agree with this. I mean, if I was making something and telling everyone it was original, and then I found out that it wasn’t, I’d probably stop making it anyway, purely out of embarrassment. But I don’t think she has to.
June 1, 2011 at 12:55 am
I agree. I don’t think she should have to stop making them if they are widespread and nobody is putting forth a credible claim to the original concept. If the ORIGINAL designer is found and wants to retain ownership, then yes, she and everyone else should stop.
June 1, 2011 at 2:09 am
I agree too, to a certain extent; but only if she did actually come up with it independently. I realise there’s no way to actually know, but there’s surely a moral difference between having independently come up with something that someone else has also independently come up with; and seeing something in someone else’s shop and copying it.
Unless you’ve seen it in several places and it’s impossible to determine who came up with it first. Then I’d say it’s become a generic idea, like the “I heart wherever” or “I’d rather be wherever” designs. That would then change if someone stood up and said, “I came up with this first”, but they’d need some very solid evidence in a case like that. Plus I’d think they were a bit late – even the courts expect a minimum degree of effort to be expended to protect your own copyright before they’ll step in and enforce it for you.
May 31, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Or at least acknowledge not being the first one and that the design isn’t yours, and only accept a reasonable number of orders that can be filled in a reasonable time. Over 1,000 in a month isn’t reasonable. How many buyers are going to get items made by someone else because she can’t possibly hand-cut and hand-file them all herself in a month?
I’m pretty against this lady right now because of that, but there’s no problem with making money off an unoriginal idea as long as she does it honestly and stops with the t-shirts calling for a boycott based on a lie.
May 31, 2011 at 5:06 pm
I agree with this, and it seems a bit.. selfish? Greedy? I’m not sure of the word I’m looking for. I mean, a thousand orders? That is an insane amount for a single person. I don’t know her, but it seems like she’s milking this whole situation for all the customers/money she can get. I don’t even know what to say about the fact that this design isn’t even 100% original in the first place!
June 1, 2011 at 2:14 am
I agree with this too. Knowingly taking more orders than you can fulfil seems an odd decision to make. But then, if she employs people to work with here making them, some jobs have been created, and they’re still handmade. If she buys them in from someone else, then that’s a bit dishonest.
The T-shirt thing definitely seems wrong, since she must realise by now that this isn’t her design.
May 31, 2011 at 8:42 pm
I think the t-shirt design is the only clever thing related to her!
May 31, 2011 at 2:26 pm
But at the end of the day, who the fuck cares? And perhaps that is callous and shrewd, but this whole debacle is just not something that gets my panties in a twist. That and I’m not sure how one pronounces Truche. In my head I hear my drunken college roommate trying to say Trudy.
May 31, 2011 at 2:28 pm
I’m thinking it’s like what happens when you smush the words “true douche” together.
May 31, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Blinded by the fight,
Revved up like a Truche
Another crafter in the night.
May 31, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Thanks, cmcneal, I never could understand Manfred Mann’s take on the song. At least I never misunderstood Creedance Clearwater Revival’s songs!
*walks away singing…
Don’t go round tonight,
there’s a bathroom on the right,
therrrre’s a bathroom on the right.*
May 31, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Hey, until ten minutes ago I thought it was “racked up like a deuce.” Not “revved.”
I’m almost 50 years old.
Fuck.
May 31, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Now I will have this damn song stuck in my head all night.
May 31, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Mugsy, I truly love you!
May 31, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Thank god the LP had the lyrics.
May 31, 2011 at 9:19 pm
I didn’t mean to not capitalize “God,” but come to think of it, there’s probably a little-g god that handles stuff like lyric sheets for weird songs.
June 1, 2011 at 2:17 am
I think you guys would enjoy The Archive of Misheard Lyrics
June 1, 2011 at 9:43 am
Fancyskants, thank you (*blushes*). I am humbled, but also embarrassed because it dawned on me this morning, on my way to work that I even missed one line (the second line should be “‘Cause it’s bound to take your life” which makes the lyrics all the odder).
June 1, 2011 at 9:51 am
Mapleleaves, if you were a fan of Terry Pratchett’s novels, specifically his Discworld series (and I recommend him and it highly), you’d know that there are many smaller gods (as evidenced in his novel, “Small Gods”) to take care of such things. Lyrics on album sleeves might not have been specified (it’s been a long time since I read that one), but it’s entirely possible.
May 31, 2011 at 3:53 pm
I agree. It rhymes with “douche” in my head.
June 1, 2011 at 9:18 am
I’m with you.
May 31, 2011 at 2:26 pm
I think the real solution to the problem would be to only sell heart related items that people really enjoy. Oh wait…
http://www.etsy.com/listing/67917656/peek-a-dog?ref=sr_gallery_25&ga_search_query=puppy+heart&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade
http://www.etsy.com/listing/5003975/kitten-heart-necklace
Damn that collective consciousness. (Also, fuck knowing how to imbed a link.)
May 31, 2011 at 2:27 pm
I kid, I kid. I know how to embed a link.
May 31, 2011 at 3:30 pm
I’m sad that the peak-a-dog doesn’t move.
May 31, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Corporation: a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.
As in, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Which is why indies never listen to NPR, because it’s so fucking establishment ‘n’ shit.
May 31, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Do you think you could drop the word ‘indie’ a few more times? I didn’t quite get how terribly hipster you are yet.
May 31, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Making sense: It’s too mainstream.
May 31, 2011 at 10:53 pm
One little, two little, three little indies…
May 31, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Maybe “indies” should incorporate? Just a thought.
May 31, 2011 at 10:45 pm
You know what’s funny? Now that I’m in business for myself, I’m sort of an indie. And I have to say: the health insurance BLOWS.
June 1, 2011 at 9:04 am
“Independent (indie)” versus “corporation”
You use these terms as if they are somehow polar opposites or incompatible! And you use them as if the rule of law someone can’t protect independent/small/medium businesses? I’m confused.
That said, there is a real issue in the US about about our bureaucracies favoring larger institutions with the most money (not JUST corporations.)
For example, a family run boutique dairy requiring the same level of paperwork, investment and regulatory over-site as a multi-state factory farming setup, in the eyes of the FDA.
June 1, 2011 at 2:24 am
A corporation doesn’t have to be more than one person. It can be set up by a single person who wants to work for themselves but reduce the risks associated with litigious customers.
You talk about limiting liability as if it was a cowardly act, but you have no idea of the realities. We all make mistakes at work. Most of us take for granted that an honest mistake won’t cost us our job. But if you work for yourself, one honest mistake which leads to litigation can cost you your livelihood. Incorporation is how you avoid losing your house as well.
June 1, 2011 at 5:42 am
Hey, my business is an LLC (I also hold business liability insurance, E&O and all that). I understand why people seek liability protection. But creating a legal regime where people can escape accountability for their actions is not in our best interests over the long run. It would be better to reform the legal system so that it comports with our sense of justice rather than declare an entire class of activities beyond the reach of full responsibility.
I don’t understand why it’s so important to limit your liability for your work activities, and yet we go through most of our non-work lives fully liable for our actions. Most call the latter condition “being an adult”, and it seems to work out just fine for most of us.
June 1, 2011 at 10:07 am
Dammit, could people stop thumbs-downing this poor guy en masse just because HK* doesn’t agree with his (perfectly valid) legal assessment? Dissenting voices are not per se evil.
* Not to say that I don’t worship the ground upon which HK walks…because I totes do.
June 1, 2011 at 10:53 am
I have no problem with being downvoted, but I have been wondering what it *means*. Am I a troll, or am I just not popular? You certainly want to hide the comments of the former, but I’m not sure you want to stifle the latter. But, then again, I don’t think anybody comes here for the stimulating intellectual discussion.
It was probably wack for me to bring this up at all, but HK faked me out by being serious for a moment, and I thought serious counterpoints might be appreciated. Yeesh, how dumb a hipster am I?
May 31, 2011 at 2:27 pm
That lady is going to have to pay people full wages to get those orders done (Leading to a small profit, no profit, or even loss) or cancel all of them and refund the money.
Urban Outfitters has lost a ton of their customers, which are all mustache wearing hipster octopus necklace 3d glasses with the lens popped out kind of people.
I say we are the winners regretsians, we are the winners.
May 31, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Can anybody explain to me the moustache thing? Why is this something? Really.
I know people say they are wearing them ironically, but I don’t really understand what is ironic about moustaches. Unless it means, “I really don’t like moustaches, but I’m wearing one, ha ha” which isn’t so much ironic and self-defeating and stupid.
Help!
May 31, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Ever been to middle school lately?
There’s this trend among the boppers where they draw a hitler mustache on their finger, and put it up to their upper lip all the while proclaiming that they are “so random”
Welcome to the world we live in; it makes no sense.
May 31, 2011 at 2:38 pm
No, I can’t say I’ve been to middle school any time in the past couple of decades. Sounds like things are still the same, though, because when I was in middle school, I wanted to beat the shit out of everyone constantly, and I guess I probably still would.
May 31, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Middle school? Come to Seattle sometime, adults are getting staches tattoo’d onto their fingers here.
May 31, 2011 at 5:50 pm
I live in Seattle too – I’m pretty sure they’ll get a mustache tattooed just about anywhere.
May 31, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Can’t help you – I’ve never understood the hipster mustache thing either.
At least tiny birds are cute and cupcakes are tasty. Mustaches on random objects? Bizarre.
May 31, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Just another thing I guess I’ll never understand. These kids today, etc. etc.
May 31, 2011 at 4:07 pm
I can’t say anything. We bought pet rocks.
May 31, 2011 at 4:14 pm
well, my husband has had a mustache ever since he could grow one, and when my daughter was about 2 or 3 (which would have been in 1996 or thereabouts), she and I would play this game where we’d put our index finger above our upper lip and say “Hi, I’m Daddy” and burst out laughing.
I think the hipsters stole that from us. Where’s my IP lawyer?
May 31, 2011 at 5:43 pm
OMFSM, it’s Natty Boh. Is it? PLEASE tell me it isn’t.
May 31, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Hipsters (the men, usually) wear big bushy mustaches because apparently it’s cool to look like Rollie Fingers:
And yes, that’s a real picture.
May 31, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Think of the wax!
May 31, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Have they lost a lot? (Genuine question) I only knew about this deal from here, and if I didn’t read this it would be business as usual for me.
May 31, 2011 at 2:27 pm
OH MAN! I so hope we get a flounce out of this! I have a Flounce-Cat just burning a hole in my back pocket. Having said that, who the Hell thinks anything is original anymore? It’s all been done and will be done over and over again. By the way, have you seen my newest invention:
OOAK
May 31, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Please discontinue stealing other people’s ideals.
May 31, 2011 at 8:47 pm
And stop at OUNCE!
May 31, 2011 at 2:38 pm
FLOUNCE! FLOUNCE! FLOUNCE! Please womyn godess ra shalomallama bing boom ba or whomever all you fat lazy jealous losers pray to, let there be a FLOUNCE!
May 31, 2011 at 2:39 pm
What are you going to call that 12-spoked thing that’s round and made of barn wood (ooh, nice touch!) and connected to an axle?
May 31, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Darling vintage woode womyn steampunk natural vegan spinning ground traveler™
May 31, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Axel? I made it first and it’s called a holdurroll. Who ever is making these “axels” STOLE MY IDEA!
Did I just date my age as prehistoric?
May 31, 2011 at 4:16 pm
You think the wheel is so easy, YOU tell us what color it should be!!
May 31, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Yes, barnwood (orgasmic sigh).
I think that you should call it a travel case for multiple wood dildos.
May 31, 2011 at 3:55 pm
…also “oak”
May 31, 2011 at 4:27 pm
I’m thinking of calling it a “wheel”. I just made that word up, so it is instantly copyright and trademark. When you use that word without my permission, I will send you a crease and desist letter. Please don’t rape my dreams.
May 31, 2011 at 5:29 pm
“You have died of dysentery.”
*Queues up more Thievery Corporation
May 31, 2011 at 7:59 pm
I shot 5 bears, but could only bring 30 pounds of meat home. I think I hate the ecosystem.
June 1, 2011 at 10:47 am
OREGON TRAIL! Dammit I loved that game. But my kids always got snakebites or broken arms and I never made it to Oregon. Ugh.
May 31, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Most of you probably haven’t heard of the band Tuscadero. But I really liked them back in the mid-to-late 90s. One of their songs, “Hollywood Handsome,” contains the lyric, “…he sure is a hottie.” When I first heard it I thought, “What the fuck! How did they hear me using that term? Does one of the band members go to college with me…?”
I had been using “hottie” for about a month and seriously thought I coined that word. (Kind of like how I thought I came up with, “geez Louise” in 7th grade.) So I get how somebody can legitimately believe they are the creators of something that many, many people before them had already imagined. Maybe this is Truche’s indoctrination. Hopefully she’ll decide to do the right thing.
May 31, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Tuscadero were awesome.
May 31, 2011 at 3:42 pm
I used to work with a woman who insisted she had been the one to come up with “ginormous”. She would get seriously worked up about other people “stealing” it from her.
May 31, 2011 at 4:02 pm
My husband and his buddies went up to the mountains (Tennessee) and stayed in a cabin. Some “Deliverance” boys came to the cabin to sell them some firewood. While they were waiting around for their money, they attempted to make small talk. The middle-sized one with the shaved head and the coffee-mug ears spit his tobacco on the floor and said, “Ya’ll ever here somebody say, ‘son of a biscuit eater’? My grandma’s the one that made that up.” Name dropper.
May 31, 2011 at 4:10 pm
dammit hear
May 31, 2011 at 8:03 pm
Lol! Also up here one avoids “using the Lords name in vain” by yelling “God Bless America!”. One of my sophomores swears she was the first to say that.
May 31, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Instead of making up words she should have been teaching her grandson not to spit inside.
May 31, 2011 at 4:08 pm
wth I came up with ginormous, she had better crease and decyst
May 31, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Decyst – is that what dermatologists do?
May 31, 2011 at 4:21 pm
I can say unequivocably that I met (and once worked wih) the man who invented the word “psychobabble.” It’s the title of a book written by Richard D. Rosen. He told me that his daughters, separately, would yell when they came across the word used in magazines or books, “Hey, Dad! They’re using your word again!”
He always said he wished he could have copyrighted the word.
May 31, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Psychobabble, que ce que c’est?
Fafafafafafafafafafa
May 31, 2011 at 9:05 pm
It is a wonderful word. I have a similar one for my profession and am copyrighting it here -”edutwaddle.”
June 1, 2011 at 8:04 am
These two sentences sum up the whole thing. Geeze.
May 31, 2011 at 4:19 pm
I came up with entire concept of designer jeans, changing “rathskellar” to “rat cellar”, and belly dancing in the SCA.
May 31, 2011 at 4:41 pm
OK, but I’m claiming Home Despot.
May 31, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Outrageously Price Over-Roasted Burnt Coffee with Pretentious and Innappropriate Italian Names? MINE, mine, all mine!!! (Yes, Daffy Duck was always my favorite…damn those Warner Bros. for copyrighting him first!)
May 31, 2011 at 8:35 pm
I claim pronouncing “Target” like “Tarzhay.”
June 1, 2011 at 8:10 am
I claim making your own soap.
June 1, 2011 at 9:58 am
Rana: Fine, but I claim pronouncing J.C. Penney’s “Jacque Claude Pen-NAZE”
June 1, 2011 at 11:46 am
I’m claiming green M&Ms as an aphrodisiac.
May 31, 2011 at 5:54 pm
“White Upcycled” is mine.
May 31, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Your last creation has been the source of many hours of lost sleep at events. Those god damned dumbeks…
May 31, 2011 at 10:57 pm
PBCGE, does that mean I get to blame you for doumbeks too?
May 31, 2011 at 9:22 pm
I had a co-worker who was born in England and raised in Italy. He later worked at a McDonald’s in Orlando.
One day he started making tiny pancakes instead of the big corporate-standard ones. He came up with the term “silver dollar pancakes” and thought he invented them.
On the other hand, “three-peat” is copyright.
May 31, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Well documented evidence you say? Then how will she get oodles and oodles of money form UO! I mean, if everyone got ripped off then at least one of them should be able to cash in, and she got noisy first. All is fair in love and outrage. /sarcasm
May 31, 2011 at 3:51 pm
She’ll be lucky if SHE doesn’t get sued by UO.
May 31, 2011 at 5:16 pm
I agree. She’s claimed they’re thieves and the widespread online media has caught on and now it will without a doubt, cost UO money in lost sales when, at least this time, they really weren’t in the wrong.
May 31, 2011 at 9:53 pm
I was thinking this today, but I don’t think UO would sue, that would make for even WORSE PR for them. Imagine the headline: Big Corporation Sues Slight Handcrafter…
May 31, 2011 at 2:30 pm
I … I just love you. *weeps a single, heart-shaped tear*
May 31, 2011 at 2:51 pm
pst! don’t forget the glitter
May 31, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Trails of glitter! Down my face!
May 31, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Don’t forget to collect them to sell on Etsy!
May 31, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Make sure to say in your listing that they are unicorn tears collected by children.
May 31, 2011 at 2:30 pm
ok, so as a complete side note-
my friend got a tattoo of california on him with a HEART in it. this was when he was 18 and that means it was a good…15 years ago. would this mean that HE originated the design (or in that fact, his tattoo artist did- per THE HANGOVER 2 lawsuit). i mean…i guess i should tell him he needs to find his layer.
May 31, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Yeah! He needs to sic his layer on both UO and Truche, and make sure they all crease and desist immediately.
May 31, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Oh the ironing of this situation!
May 31, 2011 at 2:33 pm
I LOVE that you think objectively, April.
May 31, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Oh well. Guess I’ll slip my pitchfork into my hand-tooled leather custom pitchfork holster and live to rage another day.
May 31, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Tell me where I’m wrong. Or you know, just tweet about it.
May 31, 2011 at 6:38 pm
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May 31, 2011 at 6:48 pm
Sorry, looks like you’re wrong or someone’s lying:
“We’re donating 10% of the profit from all sales to Stevie, to help her continue her dream as an independent jewelry designer.”
It’s in their FAQ.
May 31, 2011 at 7:06 pm
then someone’s not telling the truth…
Take it up with the FAQ, then. Are they just claiming to donate that 10% but actually pocketing it? – BD
June 1, 2011 at 2:19 pm
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June 1, 2011 at 9:14 pm
I have done my share of research too and what about those of us that DO NOT BELIEVE HER?? Why should I believe anyone who
1. Rips off other Etsy sellers who came before her
2. Rips off James Avery’s designs and claims them as her own
2. Claims that she did not know the design was not her original design, when in fact, she knew the market well enough to convo sellers who she thought she could intimidate, saying “stop copying me” and “etsy is a community, not a place to steal ideas”
3. She steals from Nintendo and admits it on her listing http://www.etsy.com/transaction/16180982
4. Knew a cease and desist letter to UO would not yield the results she was after
as well as other bullshit she has pulled. No this copycat whiner doesn’t deserve my faith, my trust, not one scrap of my respect. Not in a million fucking years.
June 1, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Thank you for preserving that t-shirt link HK.
May 31, 2011 at 4:41 pm
I don’t understand the logic here. You say: “For those who believe that their lines came first, or that I copied you, I would like to go on the record saying that I did not know about your product when I created mine. This is the honest truth.”
So, you get a pass, but the human/s who had his/ her/ their work commissioned by UO–they were obligated to have seen and made room for your work, specifically, before selling their necklaces? Meanwhile, their line is down, and yours is still going, but neither is actually original.
::head explode::
May 31, 2011 at 5:10 pm
In every academic setting where I’ve worked, plagiarism is plagiarism – even if you didn’t know you were committing it. You can’t plead ignorance.
May 31, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Pretty much–and it’s been proven many times over. If a work is ubiquitous enough and you’ve copied it–even unknowingly–you’ve infringed. Case and point, Phil Spector winning his case against George Harrison over the song “My Sweet Lord”. Turns out, it’s the exact same song as “He’s So Fine”, a song SO popular, George literally couldn’t have missed it, regardless of whether the likeness was intentional.
Meanwhile, a precedent like that is most likely why UO took the necklaces down, not just because Truche called foul. There was a greater body of work by various artists that preceded the UO line–in other words, a possible big fat legal nightmare they most likely wanted to avoid at all costs.
May 31, 2011 at 5:42 pm
I heart you, bunneh, in my own special trademarked patented way.
May 31, 2011 at 10:09 pm
B’awwh. Thanks!
June 1, 2011 at 1:16 am
Different. This gets out of the realm of copyright and into the murkier world of trademarks and servicemarks.
Copyright is assumed as soon as you fix a work in a tangible medium, but trademarks are harder to get. You have to prove that they’re unique before you can make any claim to them.
We’ve already established that neither UO or Truche came up with the idea first, that it’s been around for yonks. You can’t lay exclusive claim to either the shapes of states or a heart.
This isn’t a matter of intellectual property; it’s in much murkier legal waters, and noooobody wants to go there.
June 1, 2011 at 2:42 am
Bunneh I love you for pointing this out and knowing it. UO has lawyers who I’m sure told them the same thing.
June 1, 2011 at 2:46 am
Hamletta, someone is the originator and therefore the copyright holder of at least one of the state images, and possibly other people are for other states. This is actually a matter of intellectual property, it’s just not Truches IP. This issue is so public now, that the person who did this first is going to realize who they are and get a lawyer, and UO is the big pocket to sue. It’s definitely not worth it for UO to keep producing the line. Truche is not smart to continue hers at this point either.
May 31, 2011 at 6:24 pm
So I’m gonna ask again, are you splitting any of this money with the other sellers who were selling this necklace before you? I’m sure quite a few of them are struggling and could use that money, but were not cunning enough to feign faux outrage. I posed this question on your facebook page but alas that comment was deleted.
May 31, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Don’t you have work to do? How long is escrow on your house?
May 31, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Someone said that the artist made $80,000 last week in etsy sales or something like that. Wow!
May 31, 2011 at 6:41 pm
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May 31, 2011 at 6:49 pm
Looks like it’s closer to $50,000.
May 31, 2011 at 9:38 pm
My estimate is well over $74,000.
May 31, 2011 at 9:06 pm
You kill ‘em with those comebacks, dear.
May 31, 2011 at 9:22 pm
(Dear = nosensenonsense. Oh, fuck it.)
June 1, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Regretsy, not just your average angry mob with pitchforks.
May 31, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Our tools of destruction are prettier… see? I covered my torch in glitter. Which appears to be melting… OW! OW! Shiny lava of death! It burns!
May 31, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Exactly. We’re a unique, steampunk, vintage angry mob with pitchforks.
May 31, 2011 at 4:22 pm
and torches!
why are you guys always forgetting something? First it’s “fat” and now “torches”.
If I could get worked up, I’d think about perhaps flouncing. But I’m too lazy.
May 31, 2011 at 7:22 pm
I have a combination pitchfork and torch. I hold it in the middle so I don’t accidentally stab or burn myself.
May 31, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Oh, and the handle is a mustache. And there’s a fairy door on the side so vicious, rabid faeries can jump out and eat people like sparkly piranhas.
May 31, 2011 at 6:30 pm
…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
May 31, 2011 at 7:43 pm
THREE things!
May 31, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Wait, I should go back out and come in again.
May 31, 2011 at 8:26 pm
We’re a fat jealous mob with bedazzled pitchforks that we brandish with our loser claws!
May 31, 2011 at 2:37 pm
aaah, Its so refreshing to read an intelligent well thought out argument In your face one sided thinkers!
May 31, 2011 at 2:37 pm
When you’re a “maker”, you typically check out the competition, you know, to see if anyone is copying you. So it seems pretty incredible that she had no idea that others were already making this design.
She tweeted this morning that she found her dream home this weekend, with all these sales she’s got the down payment.
I just wish UO or some other big corporation would give me a reason to create a stink, it’s easy money!
May 31, 2011 at 4:01 pm
She’s buying a house? But that’s so mainstream!
May 31, 2011 at 4:23 pm
I usually check out my competition BEFORE I make anything, so I don’t waste my time. And then I go watch TV because all my “ideas” are taken already.
May 31, 2011 at 4:45 pm
I agree… crafters: do your research first. And if someone else is doing something similar, don’t do it worse than them.
For instance, the James Avery charm on the left has lovely balance of form and negative space. The edges are rounded, and the heart, perfectly sized, is an eye-catching focal point. On the other hand, the charm on the right looks sharp, bumpy and awkwardly large, with a tiny heart stamped into Texas’s rear end:
May 31, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Hey man – some of us love H-Town! Which is located, as you put it, on ‘Texas’s rear end.’
May 31, 2011 at 5:50 pm
I’ll say. East Texas IS the rear end of Texas. And here we thought it was over by El Paso. Craft on!
May 31, 2011 at 10:39 pm
Taken in August, 2008. AND IT’S ON BARNWOOD, BITCHES!!
(click image for source.)
May 31, 2011 at 5:26 pm
I hope she’s hanging on to enough of that money to pay the people who’ll have to help her fill all the orders she’s continuing to take on top of the 1,000+ she’s already taken, or else she’s going to find herself sued out of that house to give refunds. She needs to be working on those orders rather than house-hunting. It’s alarming she’s rushing to spend the money before getting those orders out the door.
May 31, 2011 at 5:56 pm
She can just buy them in bulk from China, the same way that UO does.
May 31, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Honestly. Way to count your chickens before they hatch*.
*a phrase which I made up and is copyrighted to me. Don’t rape my dreams and steal it kthx.
May 31, 2011 at 7:45 pm
I’m wondering if she’s not hoping, once she can say that she has no more cash, that she should be off the hook for the orders she hasn’t filled, thinking the house won’t be touched. If she can’t fill those orders with items hand-crafted by her, then she can be facing a felony.
May 31, 2011 at 7:46 pm
This is my copyright, which is mine, that I made and belongs to me; ehew, ehew.
May 31, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Great job Toots!
May 31, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Thanks, April, for embodying a combination of qualities I greatly admire:
ethical
thoughtful
reasonable
irreverent
snarky
smart-as-hell
funny-as-all-get-out
I could go on, but those are the main ones. Keep it comin’!
May 31, 2011 at 3:41 pm
..these are the adjectives I want in the first paragraph of my obituary.
And I agree- HK, that was a fine piece of writing.
May 31, 2011 at 4:24 pm
What a GREAT clause for my will–the adjectives I want used in my eulogy. Thanks!!!
May 31, 2011 at 3:41 pm
I thought maybe the first letter of each word spelled out something.
etrissf.
Anagram for strifes? Fisters?
May 31, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Aaaaand, we’re back to goatse.
May 31, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Exactly.
May 31, 2011 at 8:21 pm
(Reprise) “It’s the CIRCLE of LIFE. . .”
May 31, 2011 at 2:42 pm
So what constitutes an original idea? Every idea that exists is borrowed from or built on to other ideas. I’m really frustrated with the whole “Intellectual property” thing (a ridiculous concept IMO).
Is it unethical to sell something that may or may not be your original idea? Not necessarily (IMHO).
#1 Are you making it with your own 2 hands? #2 Are you representing as someone else’s design to capitalize on their trademark/advertising? If you can say #1 yes and #2 no – then carry on.
Just my unsolicited 2 cents.
May 31, 2011 at 2:54 pm
sorry, i’ve already copyrighted “intellectual property.”
May 31, 2011 at 4:26 pm
You copyright “intellectual property,” but intellectual property is copyrighted information and can’t be copyrighted and…
Ow, now my head hurts and I feel like Norman #1 in “I, Mudd.” Spock to Norman #1: “Don’t believe anything I say, because everything I say is a lie.”
May 31, 2011 at 2:55 pm
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May 31, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Where is your proof that UO saw her design and copied it? It could have been any one of the DOZENS of artists on Etsy alone who make something very similar… let alone the many artists on the web who make similar things.
There is absolutely no proof that UO saw Truche’s design and copied that specific one, aside from her complaining about it. The issue is that she’s a bit cheeky cashing in so hard on this debacle when the idea isn’t even remotely original. She’s not even put an original spin on the idea, and it’s been around for decades.
May 31, 2011 at 3:13 pm
I actually don’t think it’s ethical for her to keep selling it unless she posts a retraction in her shop, and states that the originator of the design is unknown.
In which case, she should also offer to refund all the sales that came in on the backs of her claim.
May 31, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Has she admitted anywhere that she was wrong? I have been googling and can’t find anything—
….sll I find are repeats of her sad tale and cries to buy from her on blog after blog
May 31, 2011 at 4:25 pm
you know that’s not going to happen. She’ll have mortgage payments to make, soon enough.
May 31, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Too late to give refunds. First thing she did was went out to find a house and make a down payment.
May 31, 2011 at 4:49 pm
It doesn’t actually matter (legally at least) if Truche (or UO) saw someone else’s design, and said “That’s cool, I think I’ll make it.” A work of visual art (under copyright law) is very specific:
A “work of visual art” is —
(1) a painting, drawing, print or sculpture, existing in a single copy, in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author;
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#101
Just making something doesn’t entitle you to protection.
June 1, 2011 at 2:53 am
Believe me, someone is the first person who did this. If they realize who they are they can sue, and Truche knowing as Bunneh said is not a defense. Regardless of whether you think it’s ethical for Truche to keep selling it as it seems generic, it’s not very bright for her to continue, since she’s not the originator.
In copyright cases that are in court every day in our country a judge actually does decide who originated an idea, and they even determine how similar the copied work is to the original by percentage. It is also possible that a judge would decide that the original design is too generic, but I think that’s unlikely. Even so, getting to that point in court means that you lost because you already had to pay a lawyer and go to court for years over this.
May 31, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Well, unclefoo, while I was trying to say this (see below), you came in ahead of me and did a much better job. Thank you.
May 31, 2011 at 3:06 pm
As poor as all the state governments are right now, Truch and UO should both be quiet, lest they swoop in and demand royalties to make up for their budget shortfalls.
May 31, 2011 at 4:49 pm
damn. I said this already on April’s other post. I claim copyright! and trademark. and creative properties licenses.
May 31, 2011 at 3:04 pm
it’s largely a race to call dibs.
May 31, 2011 at 4:26 pm
DIBS!
May 31, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Well played, Princess, well played.
May 31, 2011 at 7:27 pm
…..DIBS!
Damnit! Foiled again!
May 31, 2011 at 7:51 pm
DIBBS! HA!
May 31, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Oh, god, is this going to be the new “first”?
June 1, 2011 at 10:12 am
Fancyskants, I see what you did–double consonants!–a very cunning plan!
May 31, 2011 at 6:20 pm
@unclefoo:
“So what constitutes an original idea? Every idea that exists is borrowed from or built on to other ideas. I’m really frustrated with the whole “Intellectual property” thing (a ridiculous concept IMO).”
Nothing witty to say, but I’m so relieved that someone agrees with me that this shit is getting out of hand.
May 31, 2011 at 9:41 pm
This bugs me as well. I’ve run into this in (believe it or not) cloth diapering. There are a ton of women who sew cloth diapers and all of them are pretty similar.
However, it seems like every few weeks I see someone post a diaper up with “patent pending” on something they’ve done, even though it’s obviously been done before. Right now, there is a company that is trying to patent internal gussets on diapers! Something that even Pampers have! Just a couple of days ago, I saw a woman who was trying to patent/copyright/whatever adjustable leg elastic (which is already done by a company called Cottonbabies).
I just don’t get it.
June 1, 2011 at 1:24 am
That is such horseshit. I did some research on the patent process some years ago for a story on local inventors.
It is a grueling process that takes years and years of very expensive legal work. No way are you going to get a patent on a fucking diaper unless it changes itself.
June 1, 2011 at 8:28 am
YES YES YES YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!
What a shitty world we’d live in if everyone gave up as soon as they realized someone had any idea before.
Electricity, cars, computers?
May 31, 2011 at 2:42 pm
so i have this piece of crap i want to nail to another piece of crap and sell (carlin paraphrase – thanks to whoever posted it here recently). i’m reasonably sure these two pieces of crap have never been nailed together and sold before. must i wade through all 51,796 google results and check with the patent office? if i’m clear, do i get a patent? if i don’t, and find ikea is selling two craps + nail, must i creast and desist? last year someone said that kat should’ve patented the elf coat design. buh… brain ouchy.
May 31, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Copyright and patents are two very different things. You should only need to worry about patent law if you’re in manufacturing or design — patents protect a process, copyright protects the process. There are also some very specific rules behind copyright, which is what makes it so complicated. You can’t just nail x to y and claim copyright or patent.
May 31, 2011 at 6:25 pm
“patents protect a process, copyright protects the process”
I keep rereading this over and over and I can’t figure out what the difference is between “A process” and “THE process”. Am I having a dumb moment?
May 31, 2011 at 7:30 pm
I think that the second process is supposed to be product.
May 31, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Agent of Chaos is correct. Sorry about that!
June 1, 2011 at 6:39 pm
creast? i’m a good speelar.
May 31, 2011 at 2:43 pm
no one else is allowed to love bacon! copy right?
May 31, 2011 at 6:00 pm
nice plate of bacon… it’d be a shame if we had to kill you to get it back in the public domain!
May 31, 2011 at 2:43 pm
I also fucking hate to admit a corporation can do good.
But fuck if I don’t love me some truth.
May 31, 2011 at 2:45 pm
50,000$ worth of orders? hopping hobos!
I need new glasses, a trip to the dentist, and a new chair that doesn’t make my back sieze up while I am painting…
Maybe I should steal someone’s idea, claim it’s mine and cash in.
May 31, 2011 at 2:45 pm
The whole thing bothered me from the beginning. Rather than do the mature and responsible thing by contacting a lawyer and having a cease and desist order filed, she created a ton of social networking site accounts and started crying “Look at me! They’re oppressing me! Support me and put money in my account!” Meanwhile there are tons of talented and original crafters and artist actually being copied who are going to suffer in obscurity.
May 31, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Not to mention, she’s not even the first seller just on easy who made states with hearts, but she’s the only one getting attention over this and the other sellers, honest sellers, are being left in the dust.
May 31, 2011 at 6:26 pm
This entire time all I have been thinking is “Great now every fuckwit is going to start screaming ‘COPYCAT COPYCAT!’ and make it that much harder for the truely screwed and copied artists. Way to gum up the system even more.
May 31, 2011 at 2:47 pm
it’s funny how things turned over.
At least the “offended” made enough money to buy all the I heart necklaces out there and monopolize the market.
May 31, 2011 at 2:51 pm
No one ever makes “I ♥” necklaces of Canada.
Fucking Archipelagos, man.
May 31, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Go for it, Dot — sounds like you have an open playing field!
May 31, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Keep looking, she added Canada yesterday.
May 31, 2011 at 5:31 pm
She needs to fulfill the over-1,000 orders she already has to fill in the next 4 weeks before adding new items. I’m getting more and more suspicious of this girl. If she’s not going to be making the pendants, who is?
May 31, 2011 at 11:03 pm
Um, well she SAYS it’s Canada…
I’m not entirely… Um…
Oh, I’m sorry, I mean “Look! It’s SO cool and original and Etsy!”
May 31, 2011 at 4:18 pm
WIN
May 31, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 8:42 pm
I <3 Fail Whale?
http://www.etsy.com/transaction/50867801
May 31, 2011 at 10:03 pm
This is slightly off topic, but I would think the solution for the archipelago-heavy (or otherwise awkwardly shaped) provinces/states would be to have a heart shaped pendant with the province cut out. Then you could include all the little islands and such and everyone would be happy!
I’m not a jewelery maker so I have no idea how feasible that is, but it sounds like a cool idea in my head….
May 31, 2011 at 10:55 pm
That would be PERFECT!
Something like that would probably be okay to do with PMC clay…
May 31, 2011 at 2:52 pm
I like that Etsians hate success more than they hate unlawful activities. Sounds familiar….oh, the American public. Get rich and famous, and see how quick you go from media darling to reason for hatred. Justin Bieber anyone? Anyone? Nah..that little bastard deserves it. Britney Spears? Anyone? Nah, that bitch deserves it. Hmmm…..maybe I’m wrong.
May 31, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Okay, I get the idea that Truche shouldn’t be taking sympathy orders, but I’m not so clear on why anybody should stop making these things. If they’re so ubiquitous that nobody can really prove who did it first, shouldn’t everybody (including UO and Truche) be able to merrily punch hearts out of states to their hearts’ content?
I mean, is everyone who makes typewriter key earrings obliged to stop making them (not that that would be such a bad thing at this point) if they discover that M. Smartchick Upcyclegast actually made one in 1888?
I make derivative stuff. Even when I think I’m doing something completely original, I find someone who’s done something similar. Some of it, I first started making after reading a how-to book. I don’t outright copy, and I do my best to make things that are different enough that they’re my own, but isn’t it a continuum, and very much in the eye of the beholder?
May 31, 2011 at 3:21 pm
If you got famous selling derivative jewelry by falsely claiming that a store stole your original design from you, and if that impacted their business negatively and almost started a boycott, I think it would be very wrong to continue selling those things.
The damage is done now. If Urban Outfitters can’t sell these necklaces anymore, it’s certainly unfair to start calling it a generic design that anyone can make.
May 31, 2011 at 4:58 pm
You know, she might need her $80,000 if UO decides to bring slander charges against her. They could easily show damages, but I doubt they will because that would be serious bad rep.
June 1, 2011 at 1:02 am
Actually, it could be considered libel. Slander is spoken; libel is something that is printed or broadcast to more than three people. Way more than three people have heard her message regarding UO.
May 31, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Absolutely. I didn’t realize that Urban Outfitters had discontinued the design. Everyone or nobody–it’s just that I’m more on the everybody side. And Truche needs to make some kind of a major mea culpa.
In all seriousness, you’re really making me rethink my own standards for what I make.
And in utter nonseriousness, I need to go now because I have this great idea for a poster: Keep Calm and Love (Your State Here). Guess what I’m using instead of the crown.
May 31, 2011 at 5:35 pm
I’m possibly more peeved that there are other sellers just on easy alone who’ve been selling those same style necklaces before she even opened up shop, yet she’s claiming to have been the originator. And now, faces with that fact, all she can say is, “I didn’t know about anyone else doing it before I did it,” as if the same could’t have happened with a person at UO.
I actually hope UO sues on this one. If they should have to pay when they genuinely steal because they caused an artist financial loss, then they should be paid when they suffered a loss based on libel.
May 31, 2011 at 5:59 pm
“Easy”. I like.
May 31, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Stupid auto-INcorrect changed “etsy” to “easy.” Oops. Also “faced” became “faces,” yet “could’t” (sic) got through. ARGH.
June 1, 2011 at 1:46 am
I don’t know about that. Once it’s established that no one can lay claim to the concept itself, it becomes a matter of trade and PR.
UO’s decision to pull the line was all about PR. They were getting hammered in the media.
You think a few months from now, when everybody’s forgotten about this and the media is three or four shiny objects away from this soon-to-be kerfuffle, UO won’t bring those necklaces back?
Then what will Truche do? She won’t be able to rally the great unwashed again, and she’ll have been scrambling to meet all these orders, and then what will she do with all this new production capacity?
Will she have new designs to offer? Where? Certainly not at UO.
June 1, 2011 at 10:39 am
They won’t if they have any sort of experience dealing with “the internet.” Anyone with half a brain knows that as soon as they bring those back someone’s going to notice because there’s a person out there with no life browsing their site every day to catch them red-handed.
…. crap, we’re those people, aren’t we?
June 1, 2011 at 2:59 am
Be careful when you say “nobody can prove who did it first”. You and I can’t do that just sitting here and googling. But a lawyer with a staff can research the very first appearance of this design and contact that person and say “Hey we got a lawsuit”. This happens. And the other artists who came after and didn’t actually make much money on this are not going to get sued if that happens, but someone like UO or Truche might very well get sued. UO realizes this and their own lawyers have probably told them it’s just not worth continuing to sell them. The very publicity this created will cause lawyers to get interested in finding out if they can make a case, or someone will realize that others are copying their work and find a lawyer.
June 1, 2011 at 5:04 am
And then, greenfuzz, you’re in another ethical morass. Because say the lawyers find someone in Indiana who’s been making them for thirty years and sold about twenty a year at the state fair until ten years in, when suddenly and inexplicably, sales tripled.
And then you’ve got someone else who started making them twenty years ago, but who put a lot of effort into publicity and growing the business, who sells a thousand a year, who never saw the Indiana ones. Is it ethical to slap that artist with a cease and desist? Especially when she may well be responsible for artist number one’s increased sales?
But this thread is feeling a little heady, so let me just addbajingo twatwaffle cuntmuscles.
June 1, 2011 at 10:17 am
1978, on Navy Pier, ChicagoFest, old fat guy with a skipper hat and chubby fingers. That’s where and when I bought mine. 1978, BEFORE truche was even born!!
June 1, 2011 at 1:24 pm
I’m with you in that I’m struggling here with the difficulty telling between a rip-off of someone else’s idea, and two people independently coming up with similiar ideas. If someone accidentally makes a design similiar to another, should they really have to stop selling it? Personally I like a few variations of things.
(Of course this doesn’t apply to blatant re-sellers or clear rip-offs, who totally and obviously suck, or taking too many orders than you can fill in this case!)
May 31, 2011 at 2:57 pm
I so agree with what you said that I shouldn’t even post this because I’m being disgustingly redundant.
But what the hell.
Only want to add (or repeat) this all seems to come at least partially from
…a lack of critical thinking
—a twittery, facebookey, bloggy ability to react first and think about stuff later (Not Just for Political Crap)
…trademark, copyright and creative property madness and/or ignorance on the internet (as in if I sees it I owns it and will use it long as nobody catches me AND/OR if I can claim it I will and then I’ll sue you even if I wasn’t one who thought it up and you aren’t using it for anything remotely like what I claimed it for (i.e. Caution, Happy Birthday to You, Coexist, Sweet Pea, Life is Good, and so forth)
Also, don’t forget that Ohio makes a swell square state too. In more ways than one.
May 31, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Not so square in shape. Perhaps you reference mentality?
May 31, 2011 at 7:32 pm
How one earth would someone classify that as square?
May 31, 2011 at 8:01 pm
I live in Ohio. Believe me. We’re square.
June 1, 2011 at 4:24 am
ahhhh the HEART of America. <3
May 31, 2011 at 3:01 pm
I’m so full of awe that you can mix anger, snark, rational thought, tax advice, and a reference to my favorite childhood TV series, all in one post.
*Looks up to you with big, brown, worshipful eyes that have a tiny tear in the corner*
May 31, 2011 at 3:17 pm
May 31, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Unseeliepixie, you nailed it. I’m whimpering a little.
May 31, 2011 at 3:06 pm
I’m going to have to agree with April on this. Which should say a lot, considering how badly I hate UO. It’s a generic design that I actually feel like I’ve seen a long time ago, but can’t recall where.
However, I still boycott UO. As a gay person who has a wonderful girlfriend, I would like to be able to marry her one day. I’d like our marriage to be treated the same as every other American marriage. As long as UO donates money to groups that deny us that right, I won’t buy from them.
/rant
May 31, 2011 at 3:33 pm
That is a perfectly good reason to boycott them. If a company actively stands for something you oppose, then you have every right (nay, responsibility!) to not give them your money/business and to encourage your friends to do the same.
Dammit, I want you to get married to that gal too! I just freakin’ love weddings!
May 31, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Rosie, me too! We’ll send you an invite! Maybe we can take a trip to all the places that allow marriage equality and get a marriage certificate. Like collecting shot glasses?
May 31, 2011 at 6:22 pm
I’m more into collecting coffee mugs, but I’m sure we can work something out, haha.
Are you going to get certified in each place that you can? Marathon wedding!
May 31, 2011 at 6:49 pm
Koby, come to Iowa! We allow Gay Marriage, and now that the weather’s nice, we can hold your reception in my back yard!
May 31, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Oddly enough, gay marriage is legal in Washington, DC. My best friend married his longtime boyfriend there.
June 1, 2011 at 7:27 am
Actually, as of today Illinois is a place to get civilly unified…but I don’t know if you consider that to be equal marriage or not. It’s a step in the right direction either way!
June 1, 2011 at 3:49 pm
@Rosie Well, I was thinking we could do that, or maybe everytime we go on vacation, we can go somewhere and pick up a certificate. Kinda like renewing your vowels every year?
@Badger I have friends from Iowa, actually! They told me the same thing.
@Serpents My friends were the ones who did the marriage over Skype with the minister being in D.C.
And civil unions are a step in the right direction, I’m holding out for full equality.
May 31, 2011 at 3:38 pm
I’m with you. I’ve been boycotting UO way before it became mainstream.
May 31, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Glad to hear it.
May 31, 2011 at 4:24 pm
I’ve never shopped at UO. Is it ok if I just say I’ve been boycotting them as long as they’ve been around? After reading, (ok, skimming) the articles HK linked above on the words “extremely distasteful”, I thought ” nothing’s more distasteful than santorum.” So I’d be boycotting UO at this point anyway.
May 31, 2011 at 6:05 pm
”Nothing’s more distasteful than santorum.”
ITA :-X
(Savage Love!)
June 1, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Eh, whether it’s on purpose or not, knowing you haven’t given them any money makes me glad, so I’ll take it.
And ditto on the santorum thing.
May 31, 2011 at 6:03 pm
They’re WAY under my radar, but I support (I hate to have to say that) your right to be with the one you love, officially.
June 1, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Thank you. It always means a lot to hear.
May 31, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Come to Canada!
June 1, 2011 at 3:53 pm
I’ve actually been seriously considering it. Got a couch you can spare?
May 31, 2011 at 6:43 pm
I’d be happy to get ordained and officiate any above or below weddings. Who doesn’t love a wedding?! I don’t care 2 brides, 2 grooms, one of each, as long as you look like you kind of love each other. I just don’t get why this can’t be reality?
June 1, 2011 at 3:57 pm
We’ll give you a call when we decide to tie the knot. I actually got ordained when I heard that here in TX they were trying to make illegal to perform a marriage AND punish the person doing the performing of. If it passes, I’ll be the first one in jail for doing it. I’m a member of Get Equal, so jail doesn’t scare me.
May 31, 2011 at 3:06 pm
I agree with you, April. However, maybe because I am one of the artists selling a similar product, can a heart in a state really be called stealing someones idea?
I am totally ducking hoping not to get hit by shit storm!! I fully think I could be wrong!
May 31, 2011 at 3:08 pm
by the way, I’d like to add the particularity of THIS situation in tems of the jewelry business. I am a goldsmith (from a long line of family jewelers) and it makes me think about those pieces, such as a solitary diamond ring. if two people make a diamond ring, with one diamond, using the same materials, there are a few ways to set a diamond, so most of these rings will look very similar. is this copying each other? should all of us stop?
thoughts?
May 31, 2011 at 3:13 pm
aren’t there infringements in every “compare and save” post?
May 31, 2011 at 3:20 pm
I have an idea. You should make me one so i can examine it and i’ll let you know.
May 31, 2011 at 3:21 pm
lol. I would be happy to make you one!
May 31, 2011 at 3:22 pm
I just realized that you meant a diamond ring…and not a state with a heart cut out of it. that would be a little more implausible!
May 31, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Icraftoncrack, I was rooting for you. So close, so very very close! Damn!!
May 31, 2011 at 3:33 pm
I think it would be exceedingly hard to prove copyright over a basic jewelry form such as a solitaire ring. Additionally, I don’t believe techniques are copyrightable either. That leaves designs, and while that’s a greyer area, designs would really have to be a LOT alike, with no or few precedents, to be actionable.
May 31, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Markhed – I don’t think people should stop making solitaire rings.
But if you launch a media offensive saying that Tiffany stole the solitaire design from you, and that impacts their business and they face a boycott over it, you would be a douche to keep selling yours without an apology.
It just strikes me as unfair that we’re now willing to perceive this design as a generic thing, and the only people who can no longer make and sell it are UO.
May 31, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I agree- she should stop playing victim.
May 31, 2011 at 4:35 pm
that makes sense. I agree! Thanks!
June 1, 2011 at 10:37 am
I love your brain HK.
May 31, 2011 at 3:42 pm
I think you should all be allowed to make them. It’s not a big deal to me. Just, you know, don’t start whining about how the big evil Corporation stole your precious OOAK idea.
Particularly if –as is the case with truche– you yourself blatantly rip off other people’s ideas.
May 31, 2011 at 5:52 pm
especially when the whining is used so effectively as advertising by self and poof thinking followers.
June 1, 2011 at 3:18 am
Your stuff is gorgeous, Markhed! I only wish I could afford it. And no, a heart in a state isn’t stealing someone’s idea, unless your UO, obviously (according to what’s-her-name the whiner). Plus your work is light years better than hers, so no comparison!
But I see a terrible error in your shop. Your octopi pendants all have eight legs! Surely you’ve learned by now that a proper octopus only has six?
June 1, 2011 at 7:20 am
aww, thanks so much!!! Keep talking like that and you will earn yourself a diamond ring… hehe
May 31, 2011 at 3:17 pm
You know, April, for all your lols about being a fantastic lush, I have to say at the end of the day I am SWOLLEN with admiration over how you are more often than not fairly impartial and straightforward you are. Something to aspire to, ya know?
June 1, 2011 at 10:40 am
Totally.
May 31, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Fuck yeah April!
Stick it to the little man who thinks they’re oppressed by the big man!
May 31, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Oh let her sell it. Leibnitz and Newton came up with calculus at the same time and they were both original. She doesnt have to hire people – she can farm it all out to the other etsy people who are making the same design. Win Win.
May 31, 2011 at 3:40 pm
That’s a brilliant idea.
May 31, 2011 at 5:00 pm
I really hope she does something like that, and doesn’t get too greedy and try to keep it all.
May 31, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Didn’t you hear? First thing she did was run out to buy a house with the money. She Tweeted about it.
May 31, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Also why has no one made a line of “I GOATSE OHIO” yet?
PATENT PENDING
May 31, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Yup, you can have that patent.
May 31, 2011 at 4:13 pm
If you do this I may actually buy one for South Carolina.
May 31, 2011 at 6:48 pm
What’s with all the Ohio hatin’ on here? I’m starting to feel sorry for my home state… that’s a first.
May 31, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Heck, I live in Kentucky. We believe the Ohio side of the river is inferior, and I feel sorry for them. :/
June 1, 2011 at 11:39 am
Funny, Ohio peeps feel the same about the KY side of the river.
May 31, 2011 at 3:28 pm
you are drinking the hand crafted Kool-Aid from recycled cups
Um, don’t you mean “upcycled”?
May 31, 2011 at 6:48 pm
tomAto – tomato let’s call the whole thing off.
May 31, 2011 at 3:29 pm
I don’t get why she would keep listing shit after getting so many orders. Does etsy have an atuo-relist thing? I would think if she couldn’t follow through with the orders she would just let the shop be empty while she caught up.
May 31, 2011 at 5:39 pm
It’s a major red flag that she keeps listing despite having more orders than she can finish in a month. She’ll have to outsource as it is, yet she keeps taking more orders and rushing to spend the money. This will bite her in the ass.
May 31, 2011 at 3:37 pm
It’s like being in high school all over again except it’s the internet and there’s money involved!
May 31, 2011 at 8:31 pm
That… actually describes my high school experiences pretty accurately…
May 31, 2011 at 3:37 pm
People just like to boycott. It’s a way to feign activity while doing literally nothing.
Bonus if it’s a boycott of a thing they didn’t like or couldn’t afford in the first place. I’m boycotting colonoscopies and new Bentley rims myself.
May 31, 2011 at 3:56 pm
It’s kind of like voting for Nader.
May 31, 2011 at 8:16 pm
but without the pesky voting part.
May 31, 2011 at 5:47 pm
It reminds me of the people in my town who like to riot. It seems like they’ve been annoyed about something, but really they just want to drink and throw things.
May 31, 2011 at 6:26 pm
I’m joining your colonoscopy boycott! Those things are violating!
May 31, 2011 at 7:32 pm
…kind of like when I gave up flying hot air balloons for Lent
June 2, 2011 at 8:46 am
heeeee. When I was a smartass teenager, I used to tell people that I was giving up the MX Missile for Lent.
(In my defense, I wasn’t just being a random asshole. I grew up in a tiny, very conservative, very religious town, where people assumed that of course you were giving up SOMETHING for Lent. As soon as my high school diploma was in my chubby little hand, I hightailed it to the city and never looked back.)
May 31, 2011 at 8:31 pm
I’m boycotting boycotting so I win!
June 1, 2011 at 10:49 am
I boycotted boycotting before there was boycotting.
May 31, 2011 at 9:35 pm
“Feigning activity while doing literally nothing” applies to most social networking activism.
People think that are “doing their part” when they reblog a post on tumblr that says for every reblog $1 will be donated to the Red Cross, instead of just donating.
I’ve also been linked to non-credible sources and told to educate myself many times. Social networking activism doesn’t even require for people to think.
June 1, 2011 at 7:30 am
Oooo, I like this game!
Ok, I’ll boycott Rolexes and erm, diamond tiaras. Oh, and bright green Porsches – I’ve been boycotting them for a long time.
May 31, 2011 at 3:41 pm
So should I just sell all the unoriginal things I make for myself so I can get people to pity me when my idea is “stolen” to make a shit ton of money? I used to feel like an ass for doing the whole “I like this and it’s everywhere, but I’m not paying upwards of $20 for this so I’ll just make it” thing. After this I don’t. In fact, am I actually sitting on a mountain of cash and I just don’t know it?
I think April makes a damn good point. I have no snark to add onto it.
May 31, 2011 at 3:46 pm
I feel so bad for Truche. After all, she was the one that determined the territories for the states and countries, giving them their shapes. I bet money that you thought it was Lewis and Clark or map makers or aerial photography or satellite photos or experienced mountain climbers or that it required hundreds of people coming together to verify their findings… WRONG! Truche built/stole the idea for a time machine and did it all. She did it with an artisan touch… Don’t even get me started on how Truche created the heart stamp and the concept of love.
May 31, 2011 at 3:47 pm
I mentioned in the forums here, that I jumped on the ‘poor girl’ bandwagon, and was posting comments all over the UO FB page, and on Twitter. I felt very dumb after reading your post. I never really thought about it, or looked into it, but I chalked it up to my severe hatred for Urban Outfitters.
But see, now we have this ‘victim’ who’s making bank. Twitter gets noticed by the mainstream media, and by the next day, Big Bad UO was on the Yahoo homepage.
I just know that next time something like this happens, I will take time to actually look into it before posting anything all over Facebook or Twitter.
May 31, 2011 at 3:49 pm
So people get all up in arms over a company stealing a design from an independent artist, but stealing an idea from a big corporation is ok.
I won’t name names, but these are all from etsy.
May 31, 2011 at 4:37 pm
You won’t name names? What do you think this is, the Etsy forums? Lol Here at Regretsy we name names and point fingers. LETS KEEP THIS HOSTILE! Lol
May 31, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Sorry, it won’t happen again!
June 1, 2011 at 1:57 am
Those are trademark violations, most of ‘em. One of the important distinctions between copyright and trademark is that with the latter, the owner is required to vigorously defend its property, or risk losing any claim to it whatsoever.
Which means if any of these sellers starts doing any kind of business at all, they’ll be squished like a bug.
June 1, 2011 at 11:41 am
I completely agree with this. I see it on Etsy All. The. Time.
Do a quick search for Disney, Barbie, NFL, NBA anything like this that you can think of and you will find an obscene amount of sellers on Etsy selling items with these licensed images.
If seller A made and sold items with the artwork of seller B then seller B would be pissed and would complain and go on twitter and contact Etsy. Seller B is right in doing this. However the sellers on Etsy are doing the same thing by using licensed images that do not belong to them and yet they don’t see a problem with it.
These corporations do license their images, but there is a application and approval process and they charge a lot of money. I would be surprised if any of the sellers on Etsy had permission to use the licensed images that they use.
*Some sellers use fabrics that are licensed by the licensee to the fabric manufacturer and other similar material. I’m not sure how this works when selling products.
May 31, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Dear Regretsy Lady-
HOW DARE YOU. How dare you intimate that ANY artist is a douchebag? What have you been smoking? There is NO SUCH THING as a douchebag artist! We are all of us, every one, Saints. Saints and visionaries. Most of us also deserve Nobel Prizes for our righteousness. You are obviously just jealous of how saintly and awesome we are.
Signed-
Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh and Julian Schnabel
May 31, 2011 at 3:57 pm
When I first read this I thought it said “how satiny.”
May 31, 2011 at 4:27 pm
I read it as “how sanitary”.
May 31, 2011 at 4:00 pm
You forgot Bob Ross.
May 31, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Bob Ross wouldn’t stoop to outraged letters. He’d would just ram a happy little tree up your goatse hole and wander off humming cheerfully.
May 31, 2011 at 4:32 pm
He if he weren’t in a happy little cloud at the moment…or perhaps burning for all eternity in a sweet little corner of Hades, whatever his religion dictacted happens after death.
May 31, 2011 at 6:07 pm
May 31, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Aliceblue, I want to like that a thousand million times!
May 31, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Glad that you like it Amberleigh. I’ve always had a soft spot for Bob. My brother & I would watch the show and laugh and practice saying “happy little tree.” Bob was so mellow I think that we were getting a third-hand high via the TV screen.
May 31, 2011 at 4:03 pm
What the what
Who would pay 55$ for that?
I don’t know what makes me more annoyed; The price the etsy seller made them for or the fact that she left out the upper peninsula on Michigan and yet she claims to be from there /facepalm
Also,
I checked the UO website and it appears they have taken them down?
May 31, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Dude! I was thinking that if anyone could manage a Rhode Island with Jamestown and Aquidneck Island included (and NOT a Rhode Island just glommed on to Massachusettes), I’d be willing to name them the winner, even if they only started making them fifteen minutes ago.
Okay, not really. But I’d be tempted to buy one. And I’d want Rhode Island the size of Flava Flav’s clock necklace.
May 31, 2011 at 8:27 pm
I must be so tired… I thought you were talking about a cock necklace, and I wondered why I hadn’t ever seen that, and maybe I didn’t really want to and now I have a run on sentence… Someone hand me some booze…
May 31, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Amen to that. I’m tired of the UP being ignored! It’s like only loving one of the Hawaiian islands.
May 31, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Oh April, rationality and logic haven’t looked so good since Spock.
May 31, 2011 at 4:04 pm
I find it extremely humorous that by claiming Urban Outfitters was unethical, she’s displayed that it’s actually she who is unethical, by continuing to accept sympathy orders for necklaces which won’t even be handmade by here at this point, and money from those tremendously silly tee shirts.
Also, with the exception of misshapen Italy, I liked the Urban Outfitters versions better.
May 31, 2011 at 5:43 pm
She is rushing to spend the money she needs to be saving to pay people to make the necklaces.
May 31, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Her bunny butt necklace is from an All Night Media stamp:
http://tinypic.com/r/2hx6hpg/7
May 31, 2011 at 5:45 pm
I have that stamp!
May 31, 2011 at 9:55 pm
Me,too!
Only mine says “The end” under the bunny butt.
I put it on the back of my Christmas cards. People kept looking back there like they expected to see something….so I gave them something!
May 31, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Obviously, Plaid Enterprises stole the “Bunny Butt” design from Truche. Even worse, Tandy Leather Factory stole her horse, rose, mountains, buck and feather designs! And who knows what the political leanings of their CEO’s are. Maybe we should investigate.
Plaid & Tandy… more evil corporations stealing from an Etsy artist.
May 31, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Man, my spellcheck skills while on the ol’ Droid leave much to be desired.
May 31, 2011 at 4:16 pm
I keep wanting to come in here & say something all witty & satirical but then I’m gob-smacked by your fucking common sense (Regretsy; the voice of reason – screen cap that for future reference).
I think I love you April.
May 31, 2011 at 5:33 pm
::cues Partridge Family::
May 31, 2011 at 4:18 pm
This seller’s now listing the pendants. Same prices as truche, even.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/75107719/i-love-new-jersey-state-necklace?ref=sr_gallery_6&ga_search_submit=&ga_search_query=new+jersey+necklace&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade
Theft is contagious!
May 31, 2011 at 4:22 pm
©2011 Destiny’s Creations
The Artist reserves all reproduction rights. No work may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever with out the express, written consent of the Artist.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
May 31, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Love the capital A’s.
May 31, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Uh-oh…if she’s capping “Artist,” she should hear from Prince’s lawyers, ’cause HE was the first one to use the term “The Artist (Formerly Known as Prince).” Right? Ignoring the parenthetical phrase, of course, no one ever capitalized the word before…except, perhaps, in a few thousand recording contracts, all written and enforced by big bad corporations.
The previous was meant as sarcasm…
May 31, 2011 at 5:49 pm
No, no, NO! If you are going to capitalize it it must be spelled “Artiste!” Sigh, the illiterates we have to put up with these days…
May 31, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Has this person ever seen California on a map? Since when did we annex part of Nevada?
May 31, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Maybe it is just happy to see you.
May 31, 2011 at 9:18 pm
WTF? California has a boner? It looks like a random scrap of silver someone said “hey, that sorta looks like CA-let’s stamp a heart on it and sell it for $55″ Dumbass.
June 1, 2011 at 10:53 am
The artist, realizing that she could not copyright the shape of CA, thought that she might have a better chance with CA in an aroused state.
May 31, 2011 at 11:10 pm
I think the heart’s over the Governor’s mansion.
May 31, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Must have been made while Arnold was still governor.
June 1, 2011 at 8:09 am
Whaaaaaaaat the fuck!? The sierras have a huge boner!
Boner! I don’t even know her!
June 1, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Australia is also upside-down and backwards (from a northern perspective, of course)
June 2, 2011 at 3:42 pm
No wonder I feel dizzy.
June 2, 2011 at 12:23 am
I love how my home state looks like an old gym sock. I admit, I probably can’t do much better, but no way would I charge $55 for such haphazard low quality design.
June 3, 2011 at 1:05 am
The hell? Why doesn’t Florida get a heart? She doesn’t think anyone could love Florida? Or is it because Florida just naturally has a heart on?
May 31, 2011 at 4:19 pm
No one owns ideas. Copyright does not protect ideas. Copyright protects expressions of ideas. A human who comes up with an idea that another human somewhere else anywhere ever has already come up with, whether they work for a corporation or not, is not being fallible. They aren’t doing anything wrong at all. They are doing something human.
May 31, 2011 at 5:00 pm
There’s intellectual property. Ask Mark Zuckerberg, just say Winklevoss twins.
May 31, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Yeah but they were part of a douch train… They got douched… they douched some other people… that person turned around and redouched them. This just goes to show you that Karma is a douche.
May 31, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Aye, well.. .doesn’t that make the point? However douchey you may be, you can indeed own an idea and some douche can come and steal it from you.
Douché.
May 31, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Guys, you have created a sampler Nirvana.
Douche train take this country.
Help, I’ve been redouched.
Karma is a douche.
Douché.
What a motherload. Thank you.
May 31, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Well said. Ethically it’s a different question, though.
May 31, 2011 at 4:27 pm
What’s hilarious about that boycott t-shirt is that it’s a total rip of Milton Glaser’s original I Love NY design.
May 31, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Ah, the old let’s-make-fun-of-Down-Syndrome approach. A sure way to rescue lousy humor writing.
May 31, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Everyone is ignoring the most outrageous crime here: Urban Outfitters center justifies the text in their press releases.
May 31, 2011 at 5:13 pm
I don’t dare look.
Please tell me it’s not in Comic Sans, too.
May 31, 2011 at 4:37 pm
My first attempt at HTML. I will cry real glitter tears of joy if it works.
May 31, 2011 at 4:37 pm
WOOHOO!
May 31, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Share your secret, Gypsy, please? I am in awe and envy.
May 31, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Like I posted in the other thread, I just want a Minnesota necklace, and now I have even less idea where to get one! I also saw a similar thing at Christmas on the Today show, but those were hundreds of dollars. I guess I’ll just google something.
May 31, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Basically, to give an example. It would be like one of us knitters going to some such big corp shop, seeing a garter stitched wool scarf, with the the copy “Comfy and Cozy” and going on a twitter rant about that copies your etsy shops exact product.
May 31, 2011 at 4:51 pm
my 5 yr old drew a pic of the state of west virgina (kinda if you squint and look at it from far away) with a heart in it atleast 11 months ago, his whole class made them durring west virgina week
do you think his teacher riped of tussie also?
May 31, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Am I the only one who remembers the “I heart (insert whatever here)” craze started in the 70′s???
My grandparents have a brass key chain in the shape of the state of California with a heart cut-out, they got it from Disneyland in 1981!
Shouldn’t be messing with Mickey’s merchandise…thats a lawsuit with a big price tag!
May 31, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Yeah, that is one mean mouse.
May 31, 2011 at 7:15 pm
I thought I remembered these things existing back in the 70s! My boyfriend won me an I Heart Iowa one at the State Fair my senior year (1977), and it was basically the same design Truche’s using.
June 1, 2011 at 7:37 am
I bought mine at ChicagoFest in 1978.
May 31, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Beware the Holy Rodent Empire…
May 31, 2011 at 11:58 pm
My parent’s bought me a whole set, key chain, earrings and necklace, from each Stuckey’s we stopped at on our move from California to Iowa in 1967. Blurgh…how old does that make me feel?
May 31, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Collective consciousness in the cyber-age is inevitable. We are bombarded at practically all times by images and advertisements, pictures of our favourite actors, television… we are swimming in data coming at us from all sides. the conscious mind can only deal with so much at once, but that information is still in our subconscious. walking through the crowd i see hundreds of women, one of them is wearing a pendant that catches my eye for less than a second… i go back to my studio and stare at a blank page… a picture begins to form… i don’t know where this flash of creativity is coming from, but i LOVE my new, original design… that I had originally seen passing someone in a crowd.
these things happen in music, too. think of what an ass Mick Jagger felt like after he unwittingly ripped off kd lang… he heard his daughter humming the tune and it got stuck in his.
May 31, 2011 at 5:38 pm
I’m a librarian and spontaneously stumbled upon this gem of a book.
May 31, 2011 at 5:53 pm
Seeing as it’s a star and not that tired old heart, you could be onto somethin’ big here. Give it a try! Just don’t tell anyone where you found it.
May 31, 2011 at 6:11 pm
I you think that you do not want to take on Disney, do not even think of of taking on West. Mickey is only a rodent, these are sharks.
May 31, 2011 at 5:54 pm
That was a very concise, intelligent, and right post.
May 31, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 6:08 pm
There’s a biological concept called “convergent evolution” in which the same design evolves in separate species to solve the same problem. I don’t know if there’s a social equivalent, but it happens all the time. When you hear or see or experience something that impacts you, it’s reasonable to assume that the impression will remain long after you forget the source. Human memory is pretty crappy. Talk to any musician and you’ll find that they’ve accidentally “written” a song they had just listened to.
May 31, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Look what I found! Not only does this text have hearts but vulvas too. Etsyites should be outraged and boycott medical schools!
May 31, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Anyone else notice the urban dictionary definition of truche?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=truche%20
Kind of ironic, in light of the shop owner truche’s attitude. . .
May 31, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Too funny…the internet wins again.
May 31, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Well, that does assume that she reads.
May 31, 2011 at 6:27 pm
THANKS!
No, I really mean it. I am so sick and tired of the current net trend of everyone playing Justice Warrior to make themselves feel morally superior, it is good to hear a voice of reason instead of a constant “get the pitchforks”.
May 31, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Search “state necklace” on Etsy. There are at least 3 other stores selling state necklaces with hearts almost all of which were posted TODAY! Looks like that publicity got her plenty of attention…
http://www.etsy.com/listing/72437492/california-state-necklace
http://www.etsy.com/listing/62629518/custom-state-necklace-ships-in-24-hours
http://www.etsy.com/listing/74634456/i-love-california-state-necklace
May 31, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Your argument, HK, summed up very well at the end is a decent synopisis of the issues. Now the question is, based on what we know, what’s the best way to proceed? Since copying, stealing, and other unethical crappola is a daily occurence on Etsy, what the hell is Etsy doing (as the main platform for selling handmade online) to establish a procedure that keeps these problems to a minimum?
Nothing, not a thing.
May 31, 2011 at 6:43 pm
If hipsters weren’t outraged at something they didn’t understand, they’d be….uh…um…regular people?
May 31, 2011 at 6:52 pm
There is no way Truche ever believed she invented this design, or has any rights to it, or even to the words she chose to promote it. It is everywhere since the 1970′s. She simply saw a window to grab some cash, that being the unpopularity of UO, and exploited that opportunity. You really think that many people actually want to wear this shitty necklace? No, they just want to support her because she’s been wronged. This makes her a crafty saleswoman with questionable ethics. None of this has anything to do with craftsmanship, or fairplay, or honesty. It’s called taking money from gullible fuckers by whatever means necessary, and people have been doing it for ages.
May 31, 2011 at 7:40 pm
I really loved reading this. That is all.
May 31, 2011 at 7:44 pm
This is a very poignant post. I feel like jumping to conclusions has become a new Olympic sport that everyone is training for. Frankly, most people need to take many things a lot less seriously.
It’s like the family who wanted to copyright the birthday song: nothing new under the sun..
May 31, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Shiner Bock beer used a time machine and ripped her off in 1990!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7-how-7/2182255814/
May 31, 2011 at 8:18 pm
thank you. there comes a point when every angry little bleach headed moppet needs to understand that the “damn the man” mentality that was oh so precious when they were 17 and and melting eyeliner is no longer applicable. i am growing tired of mourning common sense.
May 31, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Gin. Lots. Trust me.
May 31, 2011 at 10:41 pm
Vodka also does the job.
May 31, 2011 at 8:22 pm
May 31, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Hey, that was my idea. I’M GONNA SUE!!!
May 31, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Hey, I know some hairspray addicts who have already put a heart-shped hole in the earth’s ozone. They should have copyright.
June 1, 2011 at 11:54 am
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?title=smelloscope&videoId=156616
May 31, 2011 at 8:26 pm
If a person were to boycott companies with whom they had policy disagreements, that person would have to grow their own food, raise cotton, gin it, weave it into fabric to make their own garments; basically go back to pre-industrial America. There are some decent corporations and there are some hideous ones (Walmart comes to mind), and ALL of them support right-wing asshole politicians because Republican policies are what helps them STAY in business.
I love Target; it dismays me to see their CEO is such an ass. Will I stop shopping there? No. There are far worse out there. I’ve never been in an Urban Outfitters and likely never will; I’m definitely not a 20-something hipster. Good luck to an Etsy crafter wanting to take on a multi-million dollar coporation. The legal fees will bury her. It seems to me she’s created a shitstorm from which she will have to dig her way out.
May 31, 2011 at 8:31 pm
Uh… copyright infringements be damned. I want an “I <3 Uranus" tee shirt, like, NOW.
May 31, 2011 at 8:38 pm
aww, thanks!
remember, you saw the design HERE first.
those fuckers at UO and any other Etsy artist best not be stealing my original design.
May 31, 2011 at 8:36 pm
Very well said.
It’s like that saying – even a broken clock is right twice a day. (Not calling you a broken clock, btw.) But what I mean is, no matter how much one might prefer artisans over “Big Necklace,” it doesn’t mean that an artisan always has the moral high ground, and sometimes Hipster Corporation, Inc.©®™ in fact did nothing wrong.
But sadly, I think many people lack the ability to view things objectively.
On a random side note, I believe the first place I ever saw the Regretsy book was at UO.
May 31, 2011 at 9:33 pm
As much as I love it when you’re funny, this is far and away the best thing I’ve read on this web site. Thanks for being funny AND savvy!
May 31, 2011 at 9:34 pm
I think when people do the “stick it to the man” stuff with big corporations, they seem to think that there’s someone sitting like Lex Luthor in an underground fortress accumulating gold coins made from the profits.
Corporations hire thousands of employees and pay them wages and benefits. Corporations are owned by individuals, mutual funds, and pension funds. Everyone has a stake in good, ethical companies that make quality products doing well.
That said, UO is creepy and obnoxious. It’s like Spencer gifts with more clothes and less taste.
May 31, 2011 at 9:38 pm
“Ya know what’s far from original? Fucking Regretsy!”
Seriously. I mean, who hasn’t fucked Regretsy? She’s like the village bicycle!
May 31, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
May 31, 2011 at 9:49 pm
I remember few years back in college a group friends asked me if I wanted to go downtown to Urban Outfuckers. The first thing out of my mouth was, “Isn’t that the place where drunk frat boys and hipsters shop?”
Glad I don’t hang out with those friends anymore.
May 31, 2011 at 10:25 pm
May 31, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Thank you for cock-blocking my rage boner and preventing me from getting misplaced-anger herpes.
June 1, 2011 at 3:00 am
True Story:
This one time, my brain invented this wonderful thing, wherein everybody worked and therefore everybody got to share in the benefits.
Turns out I invented Communism.
Sometimes our brains don’t realize (or even care to realize) whether we’ve had the original thought or not). Not saying she’s right, especially since I’m sure all the publicity has made her realize she’s not, in fact, right. I’m just saying she may not have been wrong in intent.
June 1, 2011 at 4:18 am
I am waiting for all of the negative comments to come rolling into her shop after she is unable to fill the order in a timely manner.
June 1, 2011 at 5:06 am
I used to like Regretsy, but now it’s just a slave to Big Snark. Damn the Man!!!
June 1, 2011 at 5:39 am
Great post April… Well said!
June 1, 2011 at 5:54 am
Vent your butthurt???? BAWAHAHAHAHAH.
Honestly though, I personally don’t find anything at all attractive or even very cleaver about the designs in question. That two (or probably more) people could come up with the same dumb idea is not difficult to grasp.
If anyone wants to make sure THEY are the copyright holders, then they should have taken the design and had it legally copyright protected.
But didn’t happen. People have been copying each other since the first cave hand print made on a wall. (Those were more original.)
June 6, 2011 at 9:47 am
Copyright protection is automatic and instantly legally binding in countries that have copyright law.
If you create something then it is automatically protected by copyright law.
You can trademark something, if that’s what you mean, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.
June 1, 2011 at 5:58 am
The obvious fact that people can independently come up with the same idea makes the whole copyright/patent regime that much more egregious. I personally don’t think coming up with it first makes a whole lot of different, either.
In the end, whoever has the capital and the operational expertise is going to be the one who profits the most, and that has nothing to do with being original, nor first. Just rich and efficient.
Not always. In this case, UO had lots more capital and a bigger operaton than Truche, and they got screwed. They can no longer sell the same designs she does. And you know they lost a lot of money on this. – HK
June 1, 2011 at 11:25 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
June 1, 2011 at 12:36 pm
I SMELL BUTTHURT
June 1, 2011 at 6:11 am
Well said, April!!!
June 1, 2011 at 6:40 am
Everything you wrote is perfection. PERFECTION…right down to the hatred expressed for a seller who does WELL.
Out fucking STANDING. Outstanding!
June 1, 2011 at 7:55 am
You know what’s funny? Well, OK, not really, but factually there are actually salable products that cannot actually be copyrighted because the design is so generic.
I may be the last person on earth to mention this: but this is actually one of those times. Circle, square, heart, peace sign, oval, shape of a state / country – it’s too fucking generic alone or in combination with other generic things to be “claimed.”
Someone crying “copyright violation” over this kind of public domain shit is like someone crying copyright violation over a silhouette of a boy with a fishing pole as an original idea. It just isn’t.
Only on etsy do people lose their minds over public domain designs or processes that have been around for decades or centuries.
Sorry, I wish I had something funnier to write. This is a lot of butthurt and flouncing over nothing.
June 1, 2011 at 8:13 am
I’m going to make state pendants with antlers on them instead of hearts!!!
Back off bitches!
June 1, 2011 at 9:29 am
To me, this whole mess represents the importance of having critical thinking skills.
Seriously, does no one look at the big picture and investigate an issue before blindly taking it up and whining about it all over twitter?
These people need to learn to use their brains. Instead they just heard some sob story about this poor crafter being stolen from by big, bad UO and took to their keyboards.
Thank god for Regretsy. Thank god for someone smart enough to realise how ridiculous this shit is. Smart people are not generally welcome on the internet but thank god they’re welcome here.
June 1, 2011 at 9:34 am
I think we should make t-shirts that say. “Regretsy: Smart People Welcome”.
June 1, 2011 at 9:54 am
MAKE THE MADNESS STOP!! my head hurts! people are still buying this shit like crazy… Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for etsy sellers being successful and making $$$ but not like this. Not by whining about copyright infringement when you had no copyright to begin with. It shames the rest of us etsy sellers who strive to make original designs and make an honest living.
I saw that she uses art clay, and I thought, well maybe the fumes emitted from heating that shit up 1500+ times will eventually lead to her demise. (to put it nicely)
but then i saw that shit is mostly non-toxic, and I got a sad.
I am a horrible person. Oh Regretsy, you made me this way. :p
June 1, 2011 at 10:18 am
April, you are so sane and reasonable sometimes, I just love you! Perspective and critical thinking is such a refreshing departure from much of our modern day society and it’s impulsive, sensationalist, knee-jerk reaction bull-shit, I thank the crying-eagle glitter goddess that there are people out there like you! If there is any chance that you, Jon Stewart and I could get together for an orgy, that would be great! Thanks again, and keep up the good work!
June 1, 2011 at 10:46 am
This is such bullshit. I can’t believe this Etsy seller is profiting from something that doesn’t hold water (legally) anywhere else but BS-Etsy-social-media-internet-cupcake-coleslaw-world. If you have a brilliant idea, you better protect it under copyright law or patent it or whatever.
April, I also enjoyed your post. I have to say that this is one of my favorites thus far… “Big Necklace” HAHA!!!
June 1, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Vent yer butthurt
June 1, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Her United Kingdom necklace looks a touch mangled – Scotland is definitely not that shape! And poor old Northern Ireland’s been left out altogether…
June 1, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Read this, it says it is a Mario flower-Mario of NINTENDO:
http://www.etsy.com/transaction/16180982
“itty bitty flower power.From truche
Designed by me and laser cut out of black acrylic. Tiny Mario flower power!
These are .5″ (1.27cm) tall. The acrylic is glued to sterling silver posts.”
Mario of copyrighted and trademarked Nintendo to be exact:
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp
So either it’s a Mario flower or the Mario name was used to make a sale. I wonder which one it is? I don’t know jack shit about Nintendo. I do know however that Mario is copyrighted and trademarked.
OOPSIE!
This one says “inspired by old school mario”
http://www.etsy.com/listing/22697660/flower-power
If she can be inspired by something then why can’t someone be inspired by her?
June 2, 2011 at 6:36 am
Oh, oops, I may have reported those links to Nintendo.
June 2, 2011 at 9:11 am
you know, i wish all those blogs that cried foul about UO stealing her designs posted this stuff along with those outrageous claims. Maybe it would have made it a little clearer to all the dipshits out there that this artist is as original as a fucking mustache on a mug.
June 2, 2011 at 11:18 am
I love how you unintentionally did their homework for them. You are smarter than any lawyer they can afford.
June 2, 2011 at 11:41 am
Excellent, excellent post miss Winchell. You’re right, as much as I hate UO, once can’t claim they stole such a generic idea.
And I really can’t feel sorry for someone that’s had such a huge amount of sales generated for their whinging.
June 3, 2011 at 9:27 pm
the hundredth monkey effect
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelpaukner/4029322544/in/photostream